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

[ninwa]

Full article here

Lanya Olmstead was born in Florida to a mother who immigrated from Taiwan and an American father of Norwegian ancestry. Ethnically, she considers herself half Taiwanese and half Norwegian. But when applying to Harvard, Olmstead checked only one box for her race: white.

"I didn't want to put 'Asian' down," Olmstead says, "because my mom told me there's discrimination against Asians in the application process."

For years, many Asian-Americans have been convinced that it's harder for them to gain admission to the nation's top colleges.

Studies show that Asian-Americans meet these colleges' admissions standards far out of proportion to their 6 percent representation in the U.S. population, and that they often need test scores hundreds of points higher than applicants from other ethnic groups to have an equal chance of admission. Critics say these numbers, along with the fact that some top colleges with race-blind admissions have double the Asian percentage of Ivy League schools, prove the existence of discrimination.

The way it works, the critics believe, is that Asian-Americans are evaluated not as individuals, but against the thousands of other ultra-achieving Asians who are stereotyped as boring academic robots.

Now, an unknown number of students are responding to this concern by declining to identify themselves as Asian on their applications.

...

"My math scores aren't high enough for the Asian box," she says. "I say it jokingly, but there is the underlying sentiment of, if I had emphasized myself as Asian, I would have (been expected to) excel more in stereotypically Asian-dominated subjects."

[EvangelionZeta]

From what I hear, American universities often prefer diversity in their student bodies, in academics, background, and so forth.  This is a bit of a whimsical and broad generalisation, but Asian students tend towards the same maths/science subjects (or perhaps economics...) in their studies - it would seem to undermine this principle of diversity if a top university were to accept, say, a very large percentage of Asian students intending to major in the same areas.  Hence the need to distinguish oneself with higher scores, or to otherwise choose a completely different mode of study (primarily in the humanities?).

That said, this is all inference/hearsay.  I'll leave someone more qualified/knowledgeable (eg. appianway, people applying/who have applied to America) to clarify for me - in the mean time, there's a temporary guesswork response.  :p

[Eriny]

I've heard that as well. I think it is a population diversity thing, but it doesn't seem fair at all. That is, if the practice actually happens.

[JellyDonut]

Imposing racial quotas and a bamboo ceiling in Ivy League (American) universities has always been that elephant in the room. It turned out state schools tended to have a significantly larger asian representation compared to the top end ones.  Some people have attributed this to the university politics and donations where parents are afraid of having the university asianified. As far as I know, there hasn't been enough material on the subject for it to move past statistics and news opinion pieces.
Here are a few more links I found on Steve Hsu's blog
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/02/08/do_colleges_redline_asian_americans/
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2011/04/17/high_achieving_asian_americans_are_being_shut_out_of_top_schools/?page=full

[paulsterio]

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

[JellyDonut]

I don't think it's fair at all

[paulsterio]

I see how it's unfair, but having a 50/50 balance is also good, some areas are surely male/female dominated :S

[JellyDonut]

I don't think someone should be held to a lower/higher standard solely based on their gender or race

[paulsterio]

yeah I agree with you, but is it discrimination, there might be certain reasons why it makes sense tonhave a balance

say medicine, you generally want a balance between male and female doctors, because there are illnesses where we prefer to go to a doctor of our own gender

similarly, having wide ranges of cultures in certain areas is also good, they bring a unique sense to the study and are able to make that study appeal to others of their culture

[transgression]

Some things in life are just not fair but we tend to find other ways to make it work

[JellyDonut]

say medicine, you generally want a balance between male and female doctors, because there are illnesses where we prefer to go to a doctor of our own gender

I'd find this assumption to be too large to justify any form of discrimination. Regardless, if this happened, the market powers should be able to sort it out and affirmative action need not apply anyway.

similarly, having wide ranges of cultures in certain areas is also good, they bring a unique sense to the study and are able to make that study appeal to others of their culture

Sorry, I don't really understand your point. Could you elaborate on this?

[dc302]

say medicine, you generally want a balance between male and female doctors, because there are illnesses where we prefer to go to a doctor of our own gender

I'd find this assumption to be too large to justify any form of discrimination. Regardless, if this happened, the market powers should be able to sort it out and affirmative action need not apply anyway.

similarly, having wide ranges of cultures in certain areas is also good, they bring a unique sense to the study and are able to make that study appeal to others of their culture

Sorry, I don't really understand your point. Could you elaborate on this?

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.

[MageBot]

I'm Asian and I have to sort of agree with this. I mean sure it's discrimination that a black kid who basically fails can get a free pass while some Asians with close to 100% can't get in but it would be so awkward if 90% of the students in top colleges were all Asian.

It's one of those shady areas. Just like why do indigenous Australians get all these benefits normal australians dont get u know?

[acrimony]

Just waiting for appianway to comment, so she could tell us about her Yale experiences.

[paulsterio]

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!