Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
I view the Asian american community, its general desire for hard work and achievement, as being the ULTIMATE expression of the American spirit.
Americans in the last 200 years are marked by these qualities:
-- Immigrants who left their country of original for better opportunity.
-- Extremely hard workers who don't ask for hand-outs from others.
-- Folks who value education very very highly.
To me, the Asian american community typifies these qualities (its not all, I know.. but certainly the vast majority are like this).
My grandparents came from outside the US and had these same qualities. I totally welcome all from Asia who bring these same qualities to the US. These attitudes are the bulwark upon which America's greatness rests. I wish other groups in the US were more like this.
The ULTIMATE expression of the American spirit, as you put it,
is not having its children hooked up to intravenous fluids while they memorize tons of information. And for the record, Asians, while hard workers, do not have a monopoly on that attribute. Not hardly.
I believe that article pertains to kids in China where high scores on these tests pretty much guarantees spots in top universities in China, not the Chinese-american kids that live in the US.
I know many Asian Amer. kids here prep for SATs, as do many non Asian Amer. kids. Personally, as an Asian Amer. , I never prepped for the SATs because back then I didn't know such things existed, nor did my parents.
Also, there are many White parents that hire consultants to help their kids through the college application process. That is prepping, too.
This kind of reminds me of that article about how some kids and parents in India believed that cheating was their right because the wealthy basically bought their way into university placements, and that is a form of cheating, too. When you have wealthy people who can afford to hire or pay their way to get into the top universities, that is an unfair advantage to the wealthy. The only thing the not-so-wealthy families can do to get their kids into top universities is to score higher, and unfortunately, for most people, that involves prepping, some more than others.
I don't agree with some of the prepping that goes on, and the cram classes, but then when you have these top universities that put an unfair burden on Asian students to score higher, what else should these students do? I don't agree that Ivies are the end all that be all, but if that is the goal of the student for whatever reason, and the Univ. is putting burden students, and the person is willing to put in the work to get there, why are people so negative about it?
If these colleges didn't put such a high burden on Asian Amer. students, then maybe they wouldn't prep as much. I don't know. Seems to me that people who judge others for wanting to work hard and get ahead are either hypocritical or jealous.