American Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

[appianway]

OK, I'm in finals mode, so this response is going to be very short.

With top colleges, there's the problem in that there are wayyyyy too many qualified candidates. Asian Americans are still well and truly overrepresented with admissions, but race and the opportunities that students have received doessss make a difference to admissions (if students have come from low income families, and haven't been able to afford special programs, admissions officers to take this into account, to the best of my knowledge). All of the african american and hispanic students I've met here have had fantastic qualifications (one of my best friends here is african american, and another one of my best friends is hispanic, and both got into every school to which they applied, including harvard, stanford...the list goes on). I can see that asian americans would be even more overrepresented at schools which are more score centric, but american college admissions are holistic - top schools don't just want a class of violin-playing-science-studying super high scorers (because most candidates are high scorers anyway), but they want students who will be leaders in their fields. Without meaning to sound racist, I think that a lot of white and asian students obtain high scores through lots of hard work, and the amount of time dedicated to get high grades and SAT scores (which causes the huge overrepresentation at schools that focus more on scores) means that less time is left for genuine pursuits. Just my two cents. (time to write a 12 page paper!)

[JellyDonut]

I think he means that if say a school is like 50% dominated by asians, then other ethnic groups will not have much incentive to go to the school since their own ethnic group is represented as a small minority.

That's what I meant but yeah, even though it's kinda unfair, I can sorta understand why universities want balance, it makes them more appealing to everyone!

I understand that universities are a business. However, they are sacrificing their integrity by barring people who are perfectly qualified on the basis of their race. I don't see why there should be some racial quota in universities of all places, it's not a nightclub

[thushan]

It's not a quota as such; we're not used to it here down in Australia because in Australia uni admissions are effectively based on ATAR, whereas in the US it's based on the whole persona and circumstances. The unis are aware that a relatively high number of students with Asian backgrounds are highly focused on studies due to cultural factors, so unfortunately they think that it's kinda expected of them. Nevertheless I don't think that they're trying to actively discriminate AGAINST asians, but discriminate FOR other races which are somewhat correlated to certain cultures and socieo-economic backgrounds which make it highly difficult for such people to score well on paper or in the field. Victoria does have this to an extent too, but based on socio-economic background rather than race - Access Melbourne is an example.

[appianway]

Anyway, US universities choose based on potential to succeed and proven success. Accomplishments matter. To put it in terms of Australian scores (as most people here aren't familiar with the SAT), if you had a student who scored 99.80 and played violin in their school orchestra, or someone who scored 99.60 whilst founding/running a charity, who do you think would be more likely to succeed in the future, and who would have accomplished more? Or what about a student who scored 98.50, but went to a school that was barely registered, whilst working ridiculous hours each week to support their family, and whilst completing research at a local university? It's subjective, of course, but success is more than your ATAR or SAT score.

I'm definitely not saying that asians (and whites) don't have these accomplishments - to the contrary, many do. But I'd say that the asian (and the middle class white) culture emphasises hard work to obtain good scores, and as a consequence, a lot of these students obtain better percentiles than they would place into if their pure intellect were considered. A lot of asians (and yes, a lot of whites) thus obtain very high test scores, but in reality, these aren't everything. They barely scrape the surface of success.

[JellyDonut]

It's not a quota as such; we're not used to it here down in Australia because in Australia uni admissions are effectively based on ATAR, whereas in the US it's based on the whole persona and circumstances. The unis are aware that a relatively high number of students with Asian backgrounds are highly focused on studies due to cultural factors, so unfortunately they think that it's kinda expected of them. Nevertheless I don't think that they're trying to actively discriminate AGAINST asians, but discriminate FOR other races which are somewhat correlated to certain cultures and socieo-economic backgrounds which make it highly difficult for such people to score well on paper or in the field. Victoria does have this to an extent too, but based on socio-economic background rather than race - Access Melbourne is an example.

Racial discrimination no matter how it's phrased undermines the entire notion of equality. Admittedly some races ie. blacks and hispanics are on average poorer then whites and asians, this still does not warrant racial affirmative action. In those cases, awards should be based on their individual SES not their race. Secondly, so what if working hard is ingrained into asian culture? They can hardly be faulted for that. Should a black person be detained without reason because blacks, on average, commit higher levels of crime?

Edit: fixed for clarification

[EvangelionZeta]

You're strawmanning/misunderstanding appianway's points, JellyDonut.  Basically she's saying it's not race which causes the selection, but rather, certain factors which can be race (more specifically, culturally) related.

[JellyDonut]

I wasn't responding to her. I was responding to Thushan but I was too lazy to  quote

[appianway]

The US system is different. Top colleges do not give out places simply based on a set of test scores (which, in my honest opinion, discriminates far more on class and race than the US system does). The US system rewards accomplishment. Accomplished asians obtain ivy league places. Accomplished whites do. Accomplished hispanics do. There's absolutely no question about that.

The problem that has been discussed is that asians with higher scores are equally likely to obtain places as black and hispanic students with lower scores. First of all, I'll say this - the cut off for the top 1% on the SAT is about 2200. Almost every african american and hispanic student I've met here had obtained a score above that limit. The differences in the scores might appear to be large, looking at the SAT score differences, but really, they're not that big in terms of percentiles.

And it's not about hard work being ingrained into asian (and, as I said, white middle class - heck, I'm white and middle class, and I admit it) culture. It's that this hard work leads to high test scores, which aren't the best metrics of achievement. In many cases, the emphasis on scores leaves little time to devote to doing other things. I'm going to be completely blunt and say that most people I know who scored high ATARs- white, asian or otherwise - would not have nearly the right accomplishments to stand out at these schools. Sure, you can get 99.95 and a bit of community service and some school clubs, but I honestly don't think that an asian or a white student with those scores is more deserving than a black student with a 99.00 who's also founded a business and been recognized on national television for being an entrepreneur, or even an asian student who scored 99.50 and has worked as a professional journalist (and yes, I know people who basically fit those categories). I feel inadequate about what I've done with my life, and I did well within the realm of things academically in Australia (IPhO, APhO, 99.95, writing/french competitions...).

To basically sum up everything, asian students and middle class white students tend to have higher test scores, but that doesn't mean that they're more accomplished or that they have more potential.

Sigh I hope I've tried to explain this well enough.

[giveup]

well it's similar to gender quotas, there are arguments for and against, I had a discussion with a friend regarding whether we should make quotas 50/50 for genders so that there are no male dominated areas (engineering for example) and female dominated areas, IRS both fair and unfair depending on how you look at it

I haven't read the other posts, and this has surely been addressed... but
Think about children, males play with toys that involve construction while females play with fake babies and cooking sets.
I remember watching a documentary about a boy who, following a mistake in circumcision, lost his penis. His parents decided to raise him as a girl with him being none the wiser. It was quickly apparent that he was uninterested in girl's toys... so it isn't anything to do with how genders are raised.

It may seem somewhat sexist but to an extent... genders are suited to certain jobs by psychology.
So if there were to be a 50/50 distribution, there would surely be, in your example, engineers with lesser ability.

[paulsterio]

So you're saying that it's a correlation between race and entry (caused by cultural factors) rather than a causal relationship?

That actually makes sense

[dc302]

The US system is different. Top colleges do not give out places simply based on a set of test scores (which, in my honest opinion, discriminates far more on class and race than the US system does). The US system rewards accomplishment. Accomplished asians obtain ivy league places. Accomplished whites do. Accomplished hispanics do. There's absolutely no question about that.

The problem that has been discussed is that asians with higher scores are equally likely to obtain places as black and hispanic students with lower scores. First of all, I'll say this - the cut off for the top 1% on the SAT is about 2200. Almost every african american and hispanic student I've met here had obtained a score above that limit. The differences in the scores might appear to be large, looking at the SAT score differences, but really, they're not that big in terms of percentiles.

And it's not about hard work being ingrained into asian (and, as I said, white middle class - heck, I'm white and middle class, and I admit it) culture. It's that this hard work leads to high test scores, which aren't the best metrics of achievement. In many cases, the emphasis on scores leaves little time to devote to doing other things. I'm going to be completely blunt and say that most people I know who scored high ATARs- white, asian or otherwise - would not have nearly the right accomplishments to stand out at these schools. Sure, you can get 99.95 and a bit of community service and some school clubs, but I honestly don't think that an asian or a white student with those scores is more deserving than a black student with a 99.00 who's also founded a business and been recognized on national television for being an entrepreneur, or even an asian student who scored 99.50 and has worked as a professional journalist (and yes, I know people who basically fit those categories). I feel inadequate about what I've done with my life, and I did well within the realm of things academically in Australia (IPhO, APhO, 99.95, writing/french competitions...).

To basically sum up everything, asian students and middle class white students tend to have higher test scores, but that doesn't mean that they're more accomplished or that they have more potential.

Sigh I hope I've tried to explain this well enough.

Are you saying the unis in question place no bias and this illusion of bias is due only to how the students' extracurricular activities are looked at and considered? If so, why is anyone arguing? If not, then there is still bias and they clearly need to change the way they accept new students.