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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Any south Asian male student parents on? Or do any of you have any ideas of how the admission season is panning out for them? It is very tough in our school---south Asian boys even with very high stats and scores and good ECs did not get into ED. Worried parent of a South Asian male junior. Please no politics.[/quote]

Do you understand that nearly all admissions decisions tend to be a lot more nuanced than just stats and test scores?

Do you also understand that a LOT of kids with very high stats and scores of all races and genders are having trouble gaining admission to their top choices?[/quote]

OP here: Yes, I do. It is just hard(er) when a URM student whose parents are very well to do and who has lower stats and non spectacular ECs gets into a selective college and the South Asian student does not. We would have to be ostriches to deny this is happening. And I am talking about a South Asian applicant who has won hackathons and national competitions versus a candidate who has just participated in a school varsity sports teams and school clubs. 
My child is still a junior so I am not talking about my student.

When the differences are obvious nuances kind of become irrelevant.

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Schools value students ec's  not because they are measures of value, but because they want students who will contribute in diverse ways to the school community.  So they want athletes who will populate their intramural clubs, musicians for the marching band and other music groups, club leaders who will form and lead clubs, people who will host hack-a-thons etc.  These aren't meant to be some measure of relative merit--schools select a community.   So the hackathon kid is in competition with the other hackathon kids more than the sports team captains or the artists or musicians or social activists. So the more accurate evidence of there being potential racial bias in your example would be if the hackathon winning/national competition Asian kid with higher stats was not accepted while a non-Asia hackathon losing kid who didn't qualify for the national competition with lower stats applying to the same major.

And note--you seem to downplay varsity sports in favor of winning hackathons--but sports are valued in the US and US colleges. Even if athletes don't play on the college teams there is a belief that varsity athletic performance is evidence of discipline, collaboration and achievement.  It's not seen as less meritocratic or relevant than programming skills.  You may disagree with this, but it has long been a meaningful part of the conception of merit in the US college system.

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Yeah because hackathons don’t promote discipline, collaboration and achievement. Spare me your platitudes about athletes being special for doing nothing more than any other student who is committed to an activity. [/quote]

I didn't say that at all.  I just said that winning a hackathon isn't any better either as OP suggested by saying the other candidate "just" had a varsity sports team as opposed to winning hackathon.  I actually am more the hackathon type than an athlete personally--but it's not like a school is going to want a thousand hackers and no sports.  [/quote]

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