Reply to Asian-American Groups Accuse Brown, Dartmouth, and Yale of Bias in Admissions

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[quote=Anonymous]This is my last example.  The Asian student below, in my opinion, does not have the stellar credentials that other Asian students had in my College Confidential review.  Her scores aren't even as good as the African-American student I posted YET she was chosen over many in her ethnic group and outside of it.  Additionally, with her scores and NO awards, she was accepted to a few Ivy schools.

Should she be kicked to the curb because her credentials aren't as good as the OP's or does she get a pass because she's Asian?

I'm not saying that some Asian bias doesn't exist but nobody, and I mean NOBODY of any race, deserves all the college seats.

04-01-2016 at 1:38 pm  edited April 1
Decision: Accepted

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): N/A
ACT (breakdown): 34M, 33CR, 36W, 28S (oops)
- one attempt
SAT II: 770M-II, 710Literature
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Weighted GPA: 5.1
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 3/300
AP (place score in parenthesis): 5-APUSH, 5-ENG.LANG, 4-CALC.AB, 4-COMP.SCI, 3-CHEM, 3-BIO, 3-US.GOV
IB (place score in parenthesis): N/A
Senior Year Course Load: AP CALC.BC, AP ENV.SCI, AP STATS&PROB, AP PHYS, AP PSYCH, AP HUME.GEO, AP ENG.LIT, GYM
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): N/A

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
- Numerous publications (editor)
- Environmental Coalition/Commission (vice president and liaison)
- Student Council/Government (president, student rep for board)
Job/Work Experience:
- Video game guides at home
Volunteer/Community service:
- Key Club/local foodbank/tutor at library
Summer Activities:
- Courses taken at Boston University
- Interdisciplinary program studying climate change
- MIT's Online Science, Engineering, and Technology Community (MOSTEC)
Essays (rating 1-10, details):
- Common App - 10.1/10: very personal, anecdotal, interesting metaphor utilized (came from the heart)
- Areas of Appeal - 10/10: posed a rift in humanity through a series of questions
- Why Yale - 9/10: very casual free verse poem, talked about the humble community at Yale
- Supplemental Essay - 9/10: talked about incense and how such smells serve as my culture (universal and boundless)
- I admit some essays were a bit poetic/non-sequitur, but I was happy with them overall.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
- Biology Teacher - 10/10: knew him since I began high school, worked with him in various clubs, talk to him a lot outside of class
- English Teacher - 9/10: although she was my 10th grade teacher, she knew my love for literature, and I think that's what she talked about in her letter (Socratic circles, research papers, etc)
- Guidance Counselor 10/10: her letter essentially captured my story but also revealed my love for learning by talking about my various projects in the summer programs
- Supplemental Recommendations from MOSTEC Professors: first one was quite bland (so was he somewhat) but talked about an above-and-beyond attitude; second was much more casual and talked about my love of writing.
Interview: I did not receive one.

Other

Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes
Intended Major: Humanities
State (if domestic applicant): NJ
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: M
Income Bracket: Lower Bracket
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): Personal story (? - I never specifically referenced it but I think it could be inferred from recs)

Reflection

Strengths: Genuine essays that were essentially entries to a diary, lackadaisical approach towards admissions process (I never really followed proper procedures in handing in documents/submitted my scores quite late)
Weaknesses: Scores (although I have a theory that really high scores can hinder a person)
Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: My application process was never superficial: it was revelatory for me, and I think such effect transpired for the adcoms.
Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected:
- Accepted to Princeton
- Accepted to Stanford
- Accepted to Harvard
- Rejected from MIT
- Waitlisted from Duke
- Waitlisted from Columbia

General Comments: So I think the most important lesson I garnered from such a long, drawn-out (and sometimes horrifying) process is that the result is simply just a copied-and-pasted letter (a digital one, in fact). Prior to beginning any of my college applications, I reflected on the tumultuous journeys of myself and of my classmates, and I couldn't help but to notice how there have been so many pressures that have alienated us into believing and subscribing to such a superficial dream of what "success" really is. Thus, I took the entire admissions process as a source of inspiration for myself, and only myself. My essays mirror that of a senior thesis of any college student, and they weren't written with the intention of impressing the admissions officers (bragging is quite useless and unnecessary), but rather with the genuine desire to cohesively put together the snippets of my own story. And I think that, if an institution is compelled and intrigued with your story, it'll check its acceptance marks. If not, then there isn't a compatibility, and that's totally okay. And if you have no story at all, I plead you to go write it for the sake of knowing yourself.

As someone has already stated in another thread, "people aren't lying when they tell you to just be yourself."

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