Are Asian Americans not interested in top SLACs?

[Anonymous]

We toured Cornell, Columbia, Yale, JHU, and Penn with our daughter. Surprisingly, she did not like any of them - felt they were too large and too impersonal and didn't like classes taught by TAs. Much preferred smaller schools including LACs. Kids will like what they like and that's fine. To each their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Asians study serious stuff like CS and engineering. That's why.

% STEM majors averaged across Ivy League: 35.1%

% STEM majors averaged across Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Grinnell: 38.3%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asians study serious stuff like CS and engineering. That's why.

% STEM majors averaged across Ivy League: 35.1%

% STEM majors averaged across Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Grinnell: 38.3%

DP. But STEM majors at SLACs are mickey mouse stuff comparing to ivy schools. I think that's what PP was saying.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the STEM. You won't find a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator at most schools. But doesn't W&M have some kind of arrangement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asians study serious stuff like CS and engineering. That's why.

% STEM majors averaged across Ivy League: 35.1%

% STEM majors averaged across Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Grinnell: 38.3%

I wrote CS/Engineering, not "STEM". In any case, you had to include 8 slacs to match the % of STEM majors to like 4 or 5 Ivy leagues.

There is a reason why Asian American students don't go to SLACs, and there are very few SLACs they would go to for STEM, like Harvey Mudd.

[Anonymous]

They aren't. My child knows from experience (LAC to Ivy grad where she was a teaching assistant for undergrads). STEM at top LACs is rigorous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asians study serious stuff like CS and engineering. That's why.

They cannot rely on ‘knowing someone’ aka networking like white people. I didn’t think this was something to snark at but apparently privileged whites feel differently.

which is why most white people legacies want to keep legacies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asians study serious stuff like CS and engineering. That's why.

% STEM majors averaged across Ivy League: 35.1%

% STEM majors averaged across Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Grinnell: 38.3%

DP. But STEM majors at SLACs are mickey mouse stuff comparing to ivy schools. I think that's what PP was saying.

Someone forgot to tell the grad schools that.

Science and Eng PhD rate for Ivies: 8%
Science and Eng PhD rate for above 8 LACs: 10.9%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asians study serious stuff like CS and engineering. That's why.

% STEM majors averaged across Ivy League: 35.1%

% STEM majors averaged across Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Grinnell: 38.3%

DP. But STEM majors at SLACs are mickey mouse stuff comparing to ivy schools. I think that's what PP was saying.

Someone forgot to tell the grad schools that.

Science and Eng PhD rate for Ivies: 8%
Science and Eng PhD rate for above 8 LACs: 10.9%

Why is PhD rate important? Is it supposed to be something prestigious? (it's not!) Sounds like some random thinking to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asians study serious stuff like CS and engineering. That's why.

% STEM majors averaged across Ivy League: 35.1%

% STEM majors averaged across Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Grinnell: 38.3%

I wrote CS/Engineering, not "STEM". In any case, you had to include 8 slacs to match the % of STEM majors to like 4 or 5 Ivy leagues.

There is a reason why Asian American students don't go to SLACs, and there are very few SLACs they would go to for STEM, like Harvey Mudd.

Actually, you appear to have forgotten you wrote "serious stuff like CS and engineering." It is now your contention that natural sciences and math aren't serious? Good luck with that.

And I used all 8 Ivies. I used 8 LACs ranked in order minus the service academies, who would have made the difference even larger.

Others have provided explanations that are more consistent with actual data for why Asians don't appear to know about and apply to LACs to the same extent as universities than "Asians study serious stuff..."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asians study serious stuff like CS and engineering. That's why.

% STEM majors averaged across Ivy League: 35.1%

% STEM majors averaged across Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Grinnell: 38.3%

DP. But STEM majors at SLACs are mickey mouse stuff comparing to ivy schools. I think that's what PP was saying.

Someone forgot to tell the grad schools that.

Science and Eng PhD rate for Ivies: 8%
Science and Eng PhD rate for above 8 LACs: 10.9%

Why is PhD rate important? Is it supposed to be something prestigious? (it's not!) Sounds like some random thinking to me.

STEM PhD programs are highly competitive because they are funded. You effectively get paid to create new knowledge while working with the best and brightest on important and unsolved problems, often brought to you by industry. Upon completion you are in a position to guide a company's R&D in an area you now are expert in, assuming you aren't interested in academia. PhD programs would not year after year pull from the same LACs more than certain well known universities if they were actually less rigorous. If anything, LACs are more rigorous on average, as a study by Vanderbilt economists showing LAC alumni finished econ PhD programs on average a year faster than university alumni. The position that "not everyone is interested in PhDs" though true wouldn't account for LAC alumni being better prepared compared to those who got their undergrad degrees at universities.

But I think if you are asking such a question then you really don't understand the significant of STEM PhDs to the nation's economy and security. Suffice it to say that those interested in LACs are, on average, informed of such matters to a greater extent than those who blindly assume universities are more rigorous.

https://cset.georgetown.edu/article/should-the-us-fear-rising-number-of-stem-phds-in-china/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asians study serious stuff like CS and engineering. That's why.

% STEM majors averaged across Ivy League: 35.1%

% STEM majors averaged across Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Grinnell: 38.3%

DP. But STEM majors at SLACs are mickey mouse stuff comparing to ivy schools. I think that's what PP was saying.

Someone forgot to tell the grad schools that.

Science and Eng PhD rate for Ivies: 8%
Science and Eng PhD rate for above 8 LACs: 10.9%

Why is PhD rate important? Is it supposed to be something prestigious? (it's not!) Sounds like some random thinking to me.

Really important to keep those goal posts moving, so when someone posts actual data showing LACs performance in the sciences you can make a wild claim like a BA is a terminal degree actually or nobody ever goes to school again once they have that Stanford BA in CS.

Who do you think is TEACHING these classes, some kids with a BA in Chemistry from Yale?

Undergrad schools of the MIT Physics Department include:

https://physics.mit.edu/faculty/raymond-ashoori/ (UCSD)

https://physics.mit.edu/faculty/deepto-chakrabarty/ (MIT)

https://physics.mit.edu/faculty/janet-conrad/ (Swarthmore)

https://physics.mit.edu/faculty/netta-engelhardt/ (Brandeis)

https://physics.mit.edu/faculty/daniel-freedman/ (Wesleyan)

https://physics.mit.edu/faculty/erin-kara/ (Barnard)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Asian Americans don't SLACK.

haha this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My family has been in CA for six generations, and many of my extended family attended SLACs (Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, Pomona, Amherst). The difference has to do with 1) how long your family has been in the US. First generation immigrants are unlikely to send their kids to lesser known schools. 2) level of education of parents. Asian parents, even those who are first generation, who have PhDs or MDs from top US universities understand the value and prestige of top SLACS and are much more likely to encourage their children to apply. 3) Social circles. Asian families that are more firmly ensconced in diverse, well-educated communities are more likely to know about SLACs than Asian families who don't have that kind of knowledge network.

I will add that my parents didn't care about impressing relatives back in China, who have likely only heard of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, and UCLA.

You know your relatives in China after being in the US for 6 generations? Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asians study serious stuff like CS and engineering. That's why.

% STEM majors averaged across Ivy League: 35.1%

% STEM majors averaged across Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Grinnell: 38.3%

DP. But STEM majors at SLACs are mickey mouse stuff comparing to ivy schools. I think that's what PP was saying.

Someone forgot to tell the grad schools that.

Science and Eng PhD rate for Ivies: 8%
Science and Eng PhD rate for above 8 LACs: 10.9%

Why is PhD rate important? Is it supposed to be something prestigious? (it's not!) Sounds like some random thinking to me.

STEM PhD programs are highly competitive because they are funded. You effectively get paid to create new knowledge while working with the best and brightest on important and unsolved problems, often brought to you by industry. Upon completion you are in a position to guide a company's R&D in an area you now are expert in, assuming you aren't interested in academia. PhD programs would not year after year pull from the same LACs more than certain well known universities if they were actually less rigorous. If anything, LACs are more rigorous on average, as a study by Vanderbilt economists showing LAC alumni finished econ PhD programs on average a year faster than university alumni. The position that "not everyone is interested in PhDs" though true wouldn't account for LAC alumni being better prepared compared to those who got their undergrad degrees at universities.

But I think if you are asking such a question then you really don't understand the significant of STEM PhDs to the nation's economy and security. Suffice it to say that those interested in LACs are, on average, informed of such matters to a greater extent than those who blindly assume universities are more rigorous.

https://cset.georgetown.edu/article/should-the-us-fear-rising-number-of-stem-phds-in-china/

This statement cannot be more false. It's actually the opposite. As a matter of fact, top STEM talents born and raised in US typically don't do PhDs. So those schools have to recruit heavily from international sources. I won't be surprised if the ivy school PhD applicants are mostly those without a working visa.
One of the only PhD degrees that's competitive is in business school, such as Finance PhDs.