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..

[Jack Hydrazine]

“With the result that many of them wind up over their heads and failures whereas they had a much better chance of success at a lesser college or lesser law firm, etc.”

Like Obama????

[hinckley buzzard]

Asians should consider themselves lucky. Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League discriminated against admission of Jews until WWII.

[sickoflibs]

RE “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. “...
......
I am in awe of your grasp of the matter and your succinct sarcasm. Well done!”

Thanks, You might enjoy this too: comment #79

[hinckley buzzard]

Why would a 30 year-old math professor from China apply to an undergraduate university math department in the US? What would he have to gain?

[GOPJ]

Those schools should have to take me (as a white male) over some Asians even if I don't study as hard as them to get in. That will make the world a better place to live in . Lets’ all hold hands and sing now. "It's a small world after all.."

More appropriate to your first class comment would be to sing 'It's a small-minded world after all...'

[Marine_Uncle]

Heheh. ROLF again. Your on a roll tonight.

[grumpygresh]

And the flip side is that a stupid ignorant black like zero skates through school and becomes president to oppress Whites and Asians.
zero will go to Hell for sure.

[A'elian' nation]

lol yeah Guess I’ll have to go back and get a degree in Latvian.

Good points on the Latin. Shudda done dat.

[Graybeard58]

Maybe affirmative action made sense in 1965

It didn't make sense in 1965 either. Merit is the only thing that has ever made sense.

[rlmorel]

Somebody should tell him it isn’t Allah who will be sitting in judgement of him.

[BobL]

“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.”

So the bottom-line, when someone is about to cut my chest open, is to use an Asian male if available (White male as backup). No problem from my end, I just need to know the rules of the game.

[EDINVA]

My daughter used to check “Native American” till the AA folks got a little stricter with the definition.

[Antoninus]

I know it to be a fact that Asians are discriminated against in college admissions. When I was applying to colleges, I had a friend with practically the same grades, standardized test scores, and credentials that I had. We both applied to the same college. I got in with a scholarship. He was rejected outright. The reason? He was a Filipino. Later, I found out from friends in the admissions office that prospective students received an extra weighting based on race. Blacks got the most extra points, hispanics the second most. Whites next. Asians got none.

This was one of my first introductions to the fact that the left is full of people who are complete hypocrites.

[A_Former_Democrat]

The Perfect Example, yes.

[jocon307]

Yes, i’m sure this is correct, that girl did the right thing. It is like the old quotas against Jews.

[Daffynition]

To laugh. Years ago, when our kids were sending off for college catalogs, my friend’s daughter checked off *Native American* ... within a few days their mailbox was stuffed with thick envelopes with multiple scholarship offers. When the mom backtracked, and asked the daughter what happened....daughter said, *but I am a native, and I’m American, I thought that was the best choice.* [insert mother’s facepalm here]. IIRC, she made her daughter call each school and apologize. ;)

[Impy]

Half-Asian People’s Association? Jeez.

What’s next the 1/8 Irish League?

[muawiyah]

Eye surgery ~ when you have something really, really, really bad (supraorbital retinal tear, full detachment for example) “they” send in the Asian males ~

[muawiyah]

It’s a pun ~ the Japanese term for misked rase people is “Hapa” ~