Some Asians' College Strategy: Don't Check 'Asian'

YahooNews ^ | December 03, 2011 | JESSE WASHINGTON

[Steelfish]

Some Asians' College Strategy: Don't Check 'Asian' JESSE WASHINGTON

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.

For those with only one Asian parent, whose names don't give away their heritage, that decision can be relatively easy. Harder are the questions that it raises: What's behind the admissions difficulties? What, exactly, is an Asian-American — and is being one a choice?

Olmstead is a freshman at Harvard and a member of HAPA, the Half-Asian People's Association. In high school she had a perfect 4.0 grade-point average and scored 2150 out of a possible 2400 on the SAT..

[rlmorel]

<"...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...."

I call BS.

[Thane_Banquo]

More likely is that Asians are not considered a special protected race the way blacks and hispanics are.

[central_va]

Asians are discriminated against in admissions. It is fact.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”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. “

As a white male I am offended that these asians are checking the ‘white’ box get the same diversity benefit that I have earned by not studying as hard as them. The whole system could break down if this continues.

[Kleon]

What do the 99% of Asian students with names like Ching Chong do? Is there an option to simply not mark race?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

What's behind the admissions difficulties?

Liberals.

[SoftballMominVA]

I can’t speak to college bias for Asians, but I can speak to medical school bias. The numbers do not lie - If an applicant is Asian, they need a higher GPA, a higher MCAT, and more extra curriculars than a white candidate. And a white candidate needs higher stats than a black or hispanic candidate. Men in all catagories need higher scores than women.

The difference can be huge. A black candidate with an MCAT of 27, a GPA of 3.5 and fairly decent EC’s can get into almost any med school in the country. An Asian will be lucky to get into a DO. Whites with those stats should get a DO and some lower ranked Medical schools.

That’s how it goes...

[LRoggy]

Imagine if we had 10 million illegal Asian immigrants instead of Hispanics? Think the country would be a little different?

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Yeah, but wait until you get there and they see you have slanted eyes. Then you’ll be expelled for falsifying your application.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I don’t. These colleges want a “rainbow coalition” of students, rather than the best America has to offer.

[morphing libertarian]

This is why asians don’t support affirmative action. They would lose opportunities based upon merit.

At a management meeting in Sacramento about 15 years ago, I pointed out that if we were to meet our affirmative action goals we had to hire more asians and fewer blacks and hispanics/ Everyone looked at me like I was hitler. Of course outside the meeting some said I made the goals look ridiculous. I said, thanks for speaking up in the meeting.

We had a white guy of Italian lineage who was born in east africa, I think Ethiopia IIRC. He always checked african-american and drove the blacks crazy. In fact he was the only a-a in the agency at the time and they couldn’t really do anything about it. I used to ask if our policy was based upon geography or race and people’s ears would explode.

[Lancey Howard]

Ironically, I know a kid who got accepted at the University of North Carolina by checking the “African-American” box. (He otherwise would not have been accepted, believe me.) He cancelled plans to go there after his father got suspicious about strange invitations he was getting in the mail to join various African-American clubs and fraternities.

[Dilbert San Diego]

The problems discussed here make a strong case for doing away with race/ethnicity based admissions.

If we’re not supposed to discriminate, why is it okay to discriminate against certain groups?

Maybe affirmative action made sense in 1965, but does it make sense today, when it seems that this concept has morphed into a quota system? And it a quota system which serves to screen out qualified people based on race/ethnicity???

[DoughtyOne]

I think it’s a hoot for universities that are as leftist as an organization can get, to ask someone what their race is on an application. Then the next day they send their kids out to complain about racism, for extra credit.

Talk about your stark raving two-faced idiocy.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Would they really expel a student for not being truthful about ethnicity on an application? Just wondering.

[vladimir998]

Apparently it is true. Berkeley has been discriminating against Asians for years. http://aaads.berkeley.edu/2011/01/what-really-happened-to-diversity/

Whites routinely get accepted into Berkeley when Asians with much better grades cannot.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30393117/ns/us_news-life/t/asian-americans-blast-uc-admissions-policy/

[CounterCounterCulture]

What do the 99% of Asian students with names like Ching Chong do? Is there an option to simply not mark race?

They'll have to plan ahead and legally change their name to something like Muhammad-La'Bron Gonzalez.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Since colleges and universities want diversity they have to refuse to have the best students in order to make room for those who second tier.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Any Asian who does this is STEALING from Eric Holder's people.

Even Eric Holder's people who can't read deserve to go to Ivy League schools.