For Asian Americans, a changing landscape on college admissions (Unreal!)

The Los Angeles Times ^ | February 21, 2015 | Frank Shyong

[2ndDivisionVet]

In a windowless classroom at an Arcadia tutoring center, parents crammed into child-sized desks and dug through their pockets and purses for pens as Ann Lee launches a PowerPoint presentation..

Her primer on college admissions begins with the basics: application deadlines, the relative virtues of the SAT versus the ACT and how many Advanced Placement tests to take.

Then she eases into a potentially incendiary topic — one that many counselors like her have learned they cannot avoid.

“Let's talk about Asians,” she says.

Lee's next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant's race is worth. She points to the first column.

African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says.

She points to the second column.

“Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.”

The last column draws gasps.

Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission.

“Do Asians need higher test scores? Is it harder for Asians to get into college? The answer is yes,” Lee says.

“Zenme keyi,” one mother hisses in Chinese. How can this be possible?(continued)

[cherry]

I've noticed that a lot of Asians that go to college take courses leading to a skill....dentist...engineer...medical doctor...architect....they don't seem to take liberal arts courses in the hope of getting some iffy job somewhere.....

IOWS....they go into careers that require extra study and work but also are guaranteed to pay better...

[Chickensoup]

An Indian friend of mine at an Indian wedding explained why everyone there had at least one if not two doctorates. She said that the degrees are their tickets out to a better life. The infrastructure of most Asian countries makes it difficult to gain wealth, and keep it. Instead degrees allow you to move around. Reminds me of mid 20th century Jews

[Chickensoup]

affirmative action Harvard’s entire student body would be made up of Jews and Asians.

_____________

still true.

a ‘Cliffie? Really?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Simple answer to the “white privilege” card. It’s black, then hispanic, then white privilege.

[Gay State Conservative]

a ‘Cliffie? Really?

Yup...I'm no kid,trust me on that.*Much* closer to the grave than to the cradle.

[Chickensoup]

Haven’t heard that term in years. I guess we are on the same side of the fence.

Well the last time I lived in Boston was during the riots and curfew and police stationed every 25 to 30 feet on our streets 24/7. Long time ago.