Some facts about Holistic Admissions Criteria from Stanford Daily
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
They take points off for access to quality education and parents who put education as their priority and add points to students with not as much access to opportunities or parental support. It looks like racism because certain races are (on the whole) more educated and wealthier so they give their children more opportunities. This is due to our country's racist past and current structural racism. For example, one of the thing they look at is if it is a student who will be the first generation in the family to go to college. |
Anonymous
There are Asians who are first generation college students (e.g. SE Asians) and there are many Asian parents whose first language is not English or not fluent with English and thus not able to offer much support to their children. These Asian children are disadvantaged due to their parents not being fluent with English and not being familiar with the public school system and yet they get no points unlike other minority groups and in fact they get penalized and are discriminated against in college admission. All the minority groups are disadvantaged including Asians. Asians tend to excel DESPITE all the disadvantages in terms of language, culture, marginalization, lack of role models, zero political power etc. only to be excluded in college admission and in employment and promotion later on. |
Anonymous
I am white with the same characteristics (immigrant, was poor, non-native English speaker) and never counted on the system to reward me for them. I know that life is not fair and teach my children that nothing is guaranteed, no matter how hard they work. I am grateful to sites like College Confidential that help me form realistic expectations. |
Anonymous
At least you get to enjoy the "white privilege" even if you have difficulty with English language which Asians do not enjoy so don't pretend like your "experience" is similar until you really know how it is for minority groups. |
Anonymous
Can you point to some data for this? Because the Asians I see are clearly not disadvantaged whether their parents speak English or not. TJ is a great example. If the disadvantaged Asians, were going to TJ the free and reduced lunch rate would be higher than 1%. |
Anonymous
Just because Asians succeed despite the odds stacked against them, you cannot refuse the disadvantages they have. A person with extraordinary effort can succeed against most odds. The problem is Asian kids have to put inordinate amount of effort to achieve the same compared to some other minorities in this country due to inherent bias in the college admission process. One major issue I see is the lack of Asian references (literature, history, science etc.) in education materials. I find it extremely unfair that in addition to all the discriminatory practices of expectations from the Asian kids, they have to fight the lack of cultural identity in the school system. |
Anonymous
Please see above boded statement. TJ is a great example of Asians excelling despite "disadvantages in terms of language, culture, marginalization, lack of role models, zero political power etc.". Do you think receiving free or reduced cost school lunch is the ONLY way to assess "disadvantage"? Most Asians work 2 or 3 jobs or run small businesses and work 80-90 hours per week so that they DO NOT have to ask for hand-outs including free lunch. Asians feel shamed to ask for hand-outs including free lunch. You would know that if you knew something about Asian culture. Many Asian families at TJ are middle class not upper class. Middle class because they work 80-90 hours a week. |
Anonymous
|
The obsession with test scores and grades as a measure of meritocracy is laughable. What kind of merit do they measure? They don't aren't even very good predictors of college grades. (The College Board says all 3 SAT scores plus high school GPA have a correlation coefficient of just 0.48) There are a lot of factors that go into predicting whether a child will thrive at any given institution. There is no reason to privilege SAT and GPA over every other potential measure.
The silliest part of this never ending debate is to compare the US higher education system to India, China, S. Korea, and Japan. In all those countries, there is an very strong correlation between income and admission to the top schools, even though admission is strictly test-based. Wealthy students are more likely to get in to BeiDa and IIT and Tokyo than into HYP. And in every one of those countries, the education ministries are deeply concerned that their schools fail to produce innovative thinkers and want to overhaul their systems to reduce academic burdens and reliance on test scores. Since the vast majority of students are destined to fail in those systems (as defined as admission to a top school), the pressure is enormous and everything besides test taking is tossed aside. Why in the world should the US imitate higher education system that other countries are trying to make more like ours? |
Anonymous
For the millionth time, this response will address the same issue so pay attention: Asian Americans do not argue for test scores or gpas to trump over other factors. In fact, colleges can use all the objective and subjective criteria they want to use. That is fine and dandy. The problem is, pay attention now, the various criteria are APPLIED DIFFERENTLY based on race. Again Asians DO NOT complain about the factors used in college admissions at all. Asians only want them APPLIED CONSISTENTLY without illegal racial discrimination where one race has to show higher test scores, higher gpas, more club activities, more awards, more officer positions, more volunteer hours etc. That is the problem, not that colleges use test scores or gpas. I am sure this will have to be repeated over and over since someone will come back and say exactly the same thing: Why should we only look at SAT scores?, SAT doesn't show creativity, SAT doesn't predict college success, we don't want rote memorization, higher income will boost SAT scores etc. |
Anonymous
This is some pretty uninformed mythology. In reality, most Asian-Americans don't work 2 or 3 jobs. Labor force participation is not much different - 59.9% of Asian-Americans ages 16+ are employed, not much higher than whites (59.4%) and Hispanics (59.0%) and African-Americans (52.3%). Among women, black women ages 16+ (54.3%) are more likely to work than Asian women (46.5%). And, Asian-Americans are not particularly more likely to own small businesses. Just 6.3% of Asian-American workers are self-employed compared to 7.4% among whites and 6.3% among Hispanics. The key reason Asian-Americans do better economically is that immigration laws strongly favor those with education. 57.5% of employed Asian-Americans ages 25+ have a college degree compared to 36.1% among whites, 26% among blacks, and 16.9% among Hispanics. And if you take a random group of children, those whose parents are college educated are going to do better in school than those who didn't. It's not about race, it's the particular social capital your parents gave you. And, since Asian-Americans as a group are heavily tilted toward recent immigrants (74% born abroad), many are also banned from receiving most federally-funded public benefits (Medicaid, food stamps/SNAP, TANF/welfare, SSI) for 5 years. So it's there's no great moral superiority in not taking handouts when you're not eligible. By the way, check out any Asian senior center like the Wah Luck House in Chinatown and you'll find that nearly all the residents receive low-income assistance. |
Anonymous
I am thinking great majority (if not almost all) of Asian families with kids at TJ have been in the US for longer than 5 years so the 5 year argument doesn't fly. Also, throwing some numbers will not work either since we can go back and forth all day throwing numbers, stats and figures. The bottom line is, income and wealth of Asian families at TJ are not the income and wealth level of wealthy white families at schools like Langley or some private school. Most Asian families with kid(s) at TJ are solidly middle class with some upper-middle class and due mostly to long work hours. I met many Asian parents at TJ who did not speak English fluently. "And, since Asian-Americans as a group are heavily tilted toward recent immigrants (74% born abroad)", you demonstrated that indeed Asian parents have cultural and language problems which hinder supporting their children with school and activities. |
Anonymous
A much bigger advantage, no matter what your race, is having parents who went to college. Even if the parents do not have a good command of English, having the experience of attending college in any country makes a huge difference. Parents who did not go to college, no matter what, country they are in, do not have the background to guide their kids in preparing for and choosing a college. They don't know what they don't know and don't know the appropriate questions to ask. The kids at the biggest disadvantage, regardless of race or English proficiency, are the kids who will be the first generation to go to college. Colleges try to give a bit of a bump for that, but it is very difficult to make up for all these kids and their parents are missing. |
Anonymous
| I'm Asian and the unfairness of this is just epic. To punish our kids for working as hard as they do is criminal. |
Anonymous
Colleges try to give a bit of a bump for first generations? The problem is many (almost all) supposed "African American" slots at the top colleges are taken up by African and Caribbean immigrants who were not oppressed for generations and they often have professional parents with good income and did not experience disadvantages but actually good support and advantages in life. Same with Hispanics. Many (if not most) of the Hispanic slots are taken up by "whites" with Hispanic sounding names from Spain or whites with at most 1/4 Hispanic who do not even speak Spanish and has never lived outside US. What a sham. |
Anonymous
+100 |