Good luck for Ivy Day!

[Anonymous]

Hmm. Not true for my kid. Captain and award-winning debater, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pro tip for 8-9th grade parents. Encourage your kid to try debate and see if they like it. DC is a top debater and says every one of their peers got into one of their reach schools. A major proportion of these are Asian kids fwiw.

Correlation not causation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hmm. Not true for my kid. Captain and award-winning debater, too.

What kind of debate and what awards?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pro tip for 8-9th grade parents. Encourage your kid to try debate and see if they like it. DC is a top debater and says every one of their peers got into one of their reach schools. A major proportion of these are Asian kids fwiw.

Correlation not causation.

Worked for me back in the dark ages And for me it was causation because debate taught me how to write and exposed me to top students aiming for elite colleges. I upped my GPA substantially in one year. Debate success probably also made me a more attractive candidate to colleges, because it’s verifiable/measurable against other top candidates… You can’t BS that you won you state championships or the Princeton tournament or whatever (side note: I don’t think colleges know enough about debate to know that the Ivy League tournaments aren’t always the hardest, so I think those are good ones to excel at!) in the same way that you can BS about the club you started.

Anyway, debate was absolutely the most life changing decision I ever made and it helped me get into a top college too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pro tip for 8-9th grade parents. Encourage your kid to try debate and see if they like it. DC is a top debater and says every one of their peers got into one of their reach schools. A major proportion of these are Asian kids fwiw.

Correlation not causation.

Worked for me back in the dark ages And for me it was causation because debate taught me how to write and exposed me to top students aiming for elite colleges. I upped my GPA substantially in one year. Debate success probably also made me a more attractive candidate to colleges, because it’s verifiable/measurable against other top candidates… You can’t BS that you won you state championships or the Princeton tournament or whatever (side note: I don’t think colleges know enough about debate to know that the Ivy League tournaments aren’t always the hardest, so I think those are good ones to excel at!) in the same way that you can BS about the club you started.

Anyway, debate was absolutely the most life changing decision I ever made and it helped me get into a top college too.

Debate?

Useless nowadays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pro tip for 8-9th grade parents. Encourage your kid to try debate and see if they like it. DC is a top debater and says every one of their peers got into one of their reach schools. A major proportion of these are Asian kids fwiw.

Correlation not causation.

Worked for me back in the dark ages And for me it was causation because debate taught me how to write and exposed me to top students aiming for elite colleges. I upped my GPA substantially in one year. Debate success probably also made me a more attractive candidate to colleges, because it’s verifiable/measurable against other top candidates… You can’t BS that you won you state championships or the Princeton tournament or whatever (side note: I don’t think colleges know enough about debate to know that the Ivy League tournaments aren’t always the hardest, so I think those are good ones to excel at!) in the same way that you can BS about the club you started.

Anyway, debate was absolutely the most life changing decision I ever made and it helped me get into a top college too.

Debate?

Useless nowadays.

Ever hear of law school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC - 3.975 GPA unweighted at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (one B). Presidential scholar candidate. 36 ACT single sitting. National science award winner. 1st tier ECs. DC Scholastic writing award winner.

White. Full pay.

Rejected at all Ivy schools to which DC applied.

Ridiculous.

If you are not a URM it’s pretty hard out there.

If you had left the URM out of your comment, I would have just scrolled on by. Since you did, why don’t you do this? Put 100 pennies on your kitchen table. Put five pennies to the side. That is the general acceptance rate at the ivies this year. Think about the list of D-1 sports the ivies have. Think about the spots for the ultra wealthy’s and staff children. Think about the millions of high school students. Just being really good at school may not get a kid one of those spots. Stop blaming people of color. Stop.

I think it takes a lot of skill and talent be a top/recruited athlete. Also, there is a lot of risk in the endeavor and it is a hard, long road. And many of those athletes have the same stats as your child.

Further, your child is a superstar and will do well at college and be happy.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. I don’t think recruited athlete should get a break either. And I am not “blaming” URMs. I am blaming the Ivy league. There is a difference.

The entitled arrogance in your opinion is laughable

Legacies and recruited athletes are literally part of the fabric of what an Ivy League college is all about

If you don't like it there's nothing stopping you from considering other colleges, there are literally thousands of colleges in this world that select students solely based on academics, there are a lot of colleges in this world where you can take an entrance test and get selected based solely on your score, but the Ivies are not among this group and never will be

But to think that the Ivies should change their tried and true methodologies that have worked for them for centuries simply because your kid does not fit the mold of what Ivies are looking for is delusional

If you buy a Tesla you inherently have bought into e-vehicles, don't buy a Tesla and complain that you want them to change it to a gas powered car

Wow. Harsh.

I’m going to weigh in here. I’m not sure how many of the posters here actually went to an Ivy League school but I did. Arguably the mist prestigious one. “Tried and true for centuries?” The Ivy leagues used to openly discriminate against Jewish people. That was a horrible era. That’s why Jonas Salk didn’t get into Yale medical school. And they did it for the same rationale given for discriminating against Asian-Americans. The ivy league (which is actually a football conference) is hardly infallible.

I attended an "elite" ivy as well

Discrimination is part of the ivy program, most ivies were founded with an affiliation to protestant/methodist/presbyterian heritage

It used to be that white anglo protestants discriminated against catholics but they became eventually integrated

Then the discrimination turned to the jews and same story they became a big part of what ivies are about

Today the discrimination is directed towards asian americans, but just as the jews overcame the discrimination through a combination of outworking and often just being better/more talented than their predecessors, the same is happening with asian americans

Being a citizen of the US is a contact sport, its meritocratic, but it takes grit and determination to succeed and like it or not the discrimination component is part of the ivies

The next few years will be very telling with how the government/supreme court will weigh in on how/if they should regulate this part of the ivy tradition

I agreed with this until the discrimination against Asians part. Asians are doing well in terms of Ivy admissions. We've seen the admitted classes, and they are over represented as a racial group (which is not a judgment).

I don't see the correlation.

I will say some Ivy institutions we visited were somewhat diverse and some were primarily white and Asian. It seems the greater discrimination here (which is not specific to the Ivy League) is against non-Asian black/brown students. They are the underrepresented groups on the campuses we visited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmm. Not true for my kid. Captain and award-winning debater, too.

What kind of debate and what awards?

DP. Same for the strongest person on DC's debate time--didn't get into any reaches. Other kids with leadership positions in other clubs and SGA did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting how many people try to shout down a caucasian person who even questions the possibility that reverse discrimination is going on.

“Stop”? What is up with that?

It wasn’t until Asian-American started to complain about it that anyone paid attention. And the reason is because people like the prior poster cannot shout them down.

No one is trying to shut anyone down. It's just when posters zoom in on URMs as the major problem as opposed to also focusing on athletes (predominantly white), legacies (predominantly white), and donor admits (predominantly white), then that seems problematic. Plus, let's be real, if the white people complaining were honest, they'd know that there is an Asian kid with higher stats than their kid that didn't get in. It's basically don't give preference to URMs but let my kid in over stronger stats Asian kids because stats don't reflect potential, charisma--you know the things the robotic Asian kids don't have according to the tired stereotypes. It's the hypocracy that gets called out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting how many people try to shout down a caucasian person who even questions the possibility that reverse discrimination is going on.

“Stop”? What is up with that?

It wasn’t until Asian-American started to complain about it that anyone paid attention. And the reason is because people like the prior poster cannot shout them down.

No one is trying to shut anyone down. It's just when posters zoom in on URMs as the major problem as opposed to also focusing on athletes (predominantly white), legacies (predominantly white), and donor admits (predominantly white), then that seems problematic. Plus, let's be real, if the white people complaining were honest, they'd know that there is an Asian kid with higher stats than their kid that didn't get in. It's basically don't give preference to URMs but let my kid in over stronger stats Asian kids because stats don't reflect potential, charisma--you know the things the robotic Asian kids don't have according to the tired stereotypes. It's the hypocracy that gets called out.

FACTS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting how many people try to shout down a caucasian person who even questions the possibility that reverse discrimination is going on.

“Stop”? What is up with that?

It wasn’t until Asian-American started to complain about it that anyone paid attention. And the reason is because people like the prior poster cannot shout them down.

No one is trying to shut anyone down. It's just when posters zoom in on URMs as the major problem as opposed to also focusing on athletes (predominantly white), legacies (predominantly white), and donor admits (predominantly white), then that seems problematic. Plus, let's be real, if the white people complaining were honest, they'd know that there is an Asian kid with higher stats than their kid that didn't get in. It's basically don't give preference to URMs but let my kid in over stronger stats Asian kids because stats don't reflect potential, charisma--you know the things the robotic Asian kids don't have according to the tired stereotypes. It's the hypocracy that gets called out.

There are lots of kids of many races with higher stats who also didn't get in. 90+% of applicants don't get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting how many people try to shout down a caucasian person who even questions the possibility that reverse discrimination is going on.

“Stop”? What is up with that?

It wasn’t until Asian-American started to complain about it that anyone paid attention. And the reason is because people like the prior poster cannot shout them down.

No one is trying to shut anyone down. It's just when posters zoom in on URMs as the major problem as opposed to also focusing on athletes (predominantly white), legacies (predominantly white), and donor admits (predominantly white), then that seems problematic. Plus, let's be real, if the white people complaining were honest, they'd know that there is an Asian kid with higher stats than their kid that didn't get in. It's basically don't give preference to URMs but let my kid in over stronger stats Asian kids because stats don't reflect potential, charisma--you know the things the robotic Asian kids don't have according to the tired stereotypes. It's the hypocracy that gets called out.

A lot of us complain about those too. I complain about all of it, but the legacy and athlete bothers me much more. However, I don’t personally know any athletes or legacies. And I’ve watched the URM advantage happen in my own social circle. Similar stats, education, parents, parent jobs, and HHI. So perhaps, instead of being jerks, we’re bothered by what we directly experience more than the abstract. Very human. And everyone hurts more when they see their kid hurt. I get the reasoning and mission, but I don’t get why it’s helping kids who in every other way had nearly identical upbringings. My family arrived as poor, white immigrants long after slavery ended. They were discriminated against too and plenty of people equated them to dogs. They worked hard jobs no one else wanted and stayed poor. Why are my friends’ kids more worthy of a bump now that we’re all in the same SES group?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting how many people try to shout down a caucasian person who even questions the possibility that reverse discrimination is going on.

“Stop”? What is up with that?

It wasn’t until Asian-American started to complain about it that anyone paid attention. And the reason is because people like the prior poster cannot shout them down.

No one is trying to shut anyone down. It's just when posters zoom in on URMs as the major problem as opposed to also focusing on athletes (predominantly white), legacies (predominantly white), and donor admits (predominantly white), then that seems problematic. Plus, let's be real, if the white people complaining were honest, they'd know that there is an Asian kid with higher stats than their kid that didn't get in. It's basically don't give preference to URMs but let my kid in over stronger stats Asian kids because stats don't reflect potential, charisma--you know the things the robotic Asian kids don't have according to the tired stereotypes. It's the hypocracy that gets called out.

All of this.

My senior was a white UMC applicant. We are all totally fine with the hooks, understanding no one is "entitled" to a spot at any school. Did it mean that my kid didn't get into a school that they may have 30 years ago? Yes. Does it matter? No.

At the end of the day, our society has 200+ years of BS to make up for, and the sooner, the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting how many people try to shout down a caucasian person who even questions the possibility that reverse discrimination is going on.

“Stop”? What is up with that?

It wasn’t until Asian-American started to complain about it that anyone paid attention. And the reason is because people like the prior poster cannot shout them down.

No one is trying to shut anyone down. It's just when posters zoom in on URMs as the major problem as opposed to also focusing on athletes (predominantly white), legacies (predominantly white), and donor admits (predominantly white), then that seems problematic. Plus, let's be real, if the white people complaining were honest, they'd know that there is an Asian kid with higher stats than their kid that didn't get in. It's basically don't give preference to URMs but let my kid in over stronger stats Asian kids because stats don't reflect potential, charisma--you know the things the robotic Asian kids don't have according to the tired stereotypes. It's the hypocracy that gets called out.

A lot of us complain about those too. I complain about all of it, but the legacy and athlete bothers me much more. However, I don’t personally know any athletes or legacies. And I’ve watched the URM advantage happen in my own social circle. Similar stats, education, parents, parent jobs, and HHI. So perhaps, instead of being jerks, we’re bothered by what we directly experience more than the abstract. Very human. And everyone hurts more when they see their kid hurt. I get the reasoning and mission, but I don’t get why it’s helping kids who in every other way had nearly identical upbringings. My family arrived as poor, white immigrants long after slavery ended. They were discriminated against too and plenty of people equated them to dogs. They worked hard jobs no one else wanted and stayed poor. Why are my friends’ kids more worthy of a bump now that we’re all in the same SES group?

Because while your family worked hard, they were able to be a part of the system and raise the overall prospects of your family in a way that someone of color was not able to do because of structural racism in banking, land ownership, access to education etc.

It is all fine and good to say everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but when some people have an anvil tied to their boot in the form of skin color, then at some point, our society has to pay for that. If that means some kid is going to BC instead of Harvard or Tufts instead of Brown, my heart is not really going to bleed very much from a macro standpoint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting how many people try to shout down a caucasian person who even questions the possibility that reverse discrimination is going on.

“Stop”? What is up with that?

It wasn’t until Asian-American started to complain about it that anyone paid attention. And the reason is because people like the prior poster cannot shout them down.

No one is trying to shut anyone down. It's just when posters zoom in on URMs as the major problem as opposed to also focusing on athletes (predominantly white), legacies (predominantly white), and donor admits (predominantly white), then that seems problematic. Plus, let's be real, if the white people complaining were honest, they'd know that there is an Asian kid with higher stats than their kid that didn't get in. It's basically don't give preference to URMs but let my kid in over stronger stats Asian kids because stats don't reflect potential, charisma--you know the things the robotic Asian kids don't have according to the tired stereotypes. It's the hypocracy that gets called out.

A lot of us complain about those too. I complain about all of it, but the legacy and athlete bothers me much more. However, I don’t personally know any athletes or legacies. And I’ve watched the URM advantage happen in my own social circle. Similar stats, education, parents, parent jobs, and HHI. So perhaps, instead of being jerks, we’re bothered by what we directly experience more than the abstract. Very human. And everyone hurts more when they see their kid hurt. I get the reasoning and mission, but I don’t get why it’s helping kids who in every other way had nearly identical upbringings. My family arrived as poor, white immigrants long after slavery ended. They were discriminated against too and plenty of people equated them to dogs. They worked hard jobs no one else wanted and stayed poor. Why are my friends’ kids more worthy of a bump now that we’re all in the same SES group?

Because while your family worked hard, they were able to be a part of the system and raise the overall prospects of your family in a way that someone of color was not able to do because of structural racism in banking, land ownership, access to education etc.

It is all fine and good to say everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but when some people have an anvil tied to their boot in the form of skin color, then at some point, our society has to pay for that. If that means some kid is going to BC instead of Harvard or Tufts instead of Brown, my heart is not really going to bleed very much from a macro standpoint.

I don’t think everyone should “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”, but the fact that we all have the same education and HHI in 2022 matters.