Ran across this interesting article on Yahoo! earlier. And it hit me quite personally because I am an Asian American.

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

Sad, but I guess it's true.
I attend one of California's best high schools, our API is 943, and 92 percent of our student population passed their Advanced Placement Exams. Oh, and our school is 80 percent Asian.

Some think Affirmative Action have really benefited African American and Hispanic people in their college entrance exams, and there are many cases of them having priority over Asians even with lower test scores.

The article also states:
So it's pretty clear is there discrimination against Asians in schools where race is considered, (aka Ivy League)

Many schools are worried about an "overflow" of Asians in the recent years. Some are saying, let all the Asians who worked their butts off to be let in, make the others work harder.

What do you guys think?

http://news.yahoo.com/asians-college...174442977.html

They want diversity.

I'm Asian and an international. So I guess it makes sense for us to work harder to get into colleges. But American-Asian too?

Ok these numbers seen fishy to me. There is a huge difference between 1550 and 1100. I don't know ifI believe this.

Asians score higher on SATs than Whites, so they raise the bar for Asians because they don't want them to outnumber the White students. Simple as that.

not true for all Asian-Americans. so now Asian-Americans have to work harder than White under the same education system?

It's not diversity if the vast majority of colleges are over 60% white anyway. What they want is a for their incoming freshmen to yes, have diversity, but also reflect to a certain extent the proportions of the larger national population. Thus, having 40% Asians at a college is considered too high because they are "overrepresented" relative to their representation in the national population.

It's kind of stupid really. I understand the motives behind affirmative action and I understand to an extent why it's important to help the underprivileged and not just accept students from the best high schools, which tend to be in surburban areas. However, on the flip side it's simply unfair to any student to be at such a huge disadvantage in college admissions simply because his/her race is "overperforming" on standardized tests and grades. I can understand it on a smaller, less severe level, but a difference of over 400 points on the SAT (assuming the source is reliable) is absolutely ridiculous.

I would advise Asians to not identify their race on their applications. Also, if their background is from an underrepresented Asian country in college populations (such as Cambodia, the Phillipines, etc.), then it may actually help to put down their specific country of descent. Since the majority of quote on quote "overachieving" Asian students tend to be Chinese or Korean, other less represented Asian minorities may benefit from specifying their country.

Reminds me of an episode of Veronica Mars...

On average, Asians score higher than Whites, yes. Look it up. What do you mean "now"? This is how it is, and its only been worse. It wasn't even possible for most minorities to get into these colleges prior to the 70s. And it's not written on the books, but yes, many of these colleges hold higher standards for Asians.

they are forgetting to take socio economic issues into consideration. many blacks and latino students are significantly disadvantaged when it comes to k-12 education.

I am not familiar with US system, but if universities want diversity, they could just limit the number of each race. Using this score system will not guarantee the proportion they want and make them look stupidly discriminating.

Affirmative action is an inherently broken system that has led to reverse discrimination towards Asians in college applications (Mostly Koreans, Chinese and Japanese). Colleges don't want the percentage of Asians in the incoming class to be higher than what Census data determined is the National make-up so when they are flooded with applications from Asians they employ a highly selective criteria.

That's not to say that Affirmative action doesn't have its merits--which it most certainly does. The whole system just needs to be looked into again, it's not the 1970's anymore.

That's true and has a point, major reason to support Affirmative Action.

But I think still both sides should try to work harder.
You can't make too many excuses for blacks and Latinos.

I've heard of this. Apparently playing violin decreases your chance even more because it's seen as cliche it's stupid.

This is so stupid. The way to overcome racism is to ignore race when it's not relevant (majority of the time). If you end up with a college full of Asian people, so be it.

Why is it so much lower for black students? That's just as much racism as this.

Some of these colleges need to stop being so biased. There are smart students in every race. I don't care if you are Asian, Black, White, or Latino. If you are smart, make good grades, have the top test scores, graduate in the top of your class then you deserve to go to the best colleges point black.

This reminds me of that black female Valedictorian teen mom. Her school refused to give her the title just because she is black and a teen mom. Give me a break. This country needs to start looking at success, not your skin color or race.

I'm so fed up with all this diversity **** when it comes to college admissions, it's so politically correct.

You are kidding me right?
Violin? How about piano?

excuses?? these are legitimate reasons. on top of that Blacks and Latinos are still required to meet all of the eligibility requirements for a university as well as have a competitive GPA. Its hard to do when your school hardly has any money at all. trust me, i know.

Wrong. The problem with "ignoring race" is the very same problem that existed back in the 70's. You wound up with a school full of white young men who were all of the same class status. You wound up with virtually no minorities in the college. What happened after that point? You had white men ruling businesses and in high working professions and positions. Do people not understand how this cycle happened and how whites got into power in the first place? It's thinking exactly like this.

One white person gets into a position of power and he naturally starts hiring and accepting people who are most like him -- i.e. White, upper class, sub-urban, from the same high school he was from, etc. -- and who think the most like him ---he hires people who are white because they are from "white culture". Thus who does he start hiring, accepting into his place or work or college? White, privileged men. It further snow balls from there. Not giving minorities a chance or opportunity to even get into that position.

The SAT score is not all that a college looks at. I would say they look just as much as where your school is, where you are located from, and what kind of neighborhood you live in before they accept you into their school. People need to wake up, it's not just about what you scored on a test. It comes down to recommendations, extra-curricular activities and where you live as well.

Except you won't end up with a college full of Asian people. You will end up with a college full of white people with minorities on the outside looking in, as per usual.

Half of the time it doesn't work anyway.