I can see giving extra help to historically marginalized races at the expense of whites, but why ding Asians? They weren't responsible for racism in the US. They weren't the ones stealing resources from other people.
Do correct me if I'm wrong but your post seems to amount to "a lot of Asians work hard and are smart, so let's have a quota on Asians because they're hardworking and smart in a way I find boring".
By the way, as a matter of policy, it seems fine to me if people can become doctors who are smart and who only worked hard because they wanted to become doctors. When I go to the doctor I care mainly about whether they know their shit, not whether they were subjectively "well-rounded" at age 18.
White twenty-something college students had nothing to do with this either. I'm against any type of extra help for anyone based on their race. Rather grant extra help based on economic situations.
This is the heart and soul of why we no longer tolerate "a homogeneous student body". Because we know how that plays out.
That's ahat eventually happens when you don't havr diversity.
for which definition of racist?
the same thing that's wrong with homogeneous anything: too focused on fitting existing patterns, and not very good at adapting to new situations.
1. Most applicants to elite schools lack social capital and have not demonstrated the ability to develop it (imho, this is what "leadership" is the code word for, at least in part). The so-called Asian clones fit this description perfectly -- so do many whites, blacks, latinos, etc. I personally don't think it's a race thing, I think it's the universities understanding what got them to where they are (hint: it's their social capital). Most of the Asian-Americans I have met at elite schools don't really come across as tiger-mom clones at all. On a personal level, I found some of the prep school folks to be more like clones and much less interesting as a group (although they have their cool and interesting people, too) -- I assume that many of them are bringing substantial social capital to the table.
2. If someone wants to be a doctor who mostly sees patients, they probably shouldn't be going to an elite school. The trajectory for elite med schools is to do great research in medicine. As such, it is unlikely that you will have an appointment with these folks as a patient. There are plenty of schools that let in "smart and work hard" people who will become great practitioners -- please don't waste a valuable elite school slot on those people. Give it to someone who demonstrates a desire to advance the field (yes, even as an 18 year old, this is possible, these people exist, and many of them are incredibly cool people).
Overall, i feel like many of the people who complain about elite school admissions don't really understand what makes these schools tick. While there are certianly parts of the process that could be improved, chalking up rejections to ignorance or racism on the part of the school or the admissions officers just seems very far off the mark.
[edit: spelling]
Admissions officers at the most elite universities absolutely do take subjective factors into consideration. If they did not, they would end up with a lottery system choosing randomly from a pool "objectively perfect" candidates.
The dirty little secret that most people don't talk about is how many/most elite schools struggle to find the best ways to fill out the bottom 30% or so of their classes. The stand out applicants, the recruited athletes, the connected people, and the demographic people are all accepted, but there are still slots open. This is where the admissions committees take calculated gambles, and it's why some people who are admitted might seem to be headascratchers.
Contrary to what many people believe, this is where the subjectivity of admissions is greatest. Be an interesting applicant, and you will be much less exposed to the subjective aspects of admissions to elite universities.
E.g. How would you categorize someone who's half black, half Asian?
Also, Asian-Americans being the model minority are far from universal. Many (especially those from Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos) are the children of refugees and grow up facing significant hardship.
What if the incoming class only has space for 1000 students? 500? 100?
They're 18. What do you want? What authentic motivation did you have when you were 18?
When I was 18 I had an authentic motivation for studying math and computer science (which I did; German's admission procedures for courses of studies are different from how it works in the USA).
What I did not have was something that made me look very social, outstanding, future leader etc. I was (and still am in many senses) the kind of rebellious, cynic, scientifically brillant (at that time without any opportunity to show) nerd who finds working in science much more exciting than about anything else.
P.S.: I was never the kind of person who can serve as a role model, since the only advice I can give is the ones my father gave me (he, being a working-class child, worked his way up): "There is always someone who will be better than you, but not being the second-best is failure." and "If you don't work harder than everybody around you, it is no surprise if you fail.". This is not something that people want to hear from role models - they want to hear things that are more socially compatible.
Seriously. My thoughts exactly. There are obviously some 18-year-old college students who know exactly what they want (some of them are replying), but even many of those will change their minds. When I was 18 I had no idea what I wanted to do (except perhaps get laid), but it was clear that college was "the next step."
On a tangential note, this thread reminds me of writing admissions essays. "Why do you want to come to this school / program?" You can never say the obvious: "Cause it's the most prestigious (or cost-effective) school I think I might get into."
For a graduate program, fine. For an undergraduate program? There are a handful of acceptable cases (Stanford makes you apply to a major), but mostly it's either "it's a good school that I hope I can get in to" or "it's a mediocre school and I need a safety for when Harvard shoots me down". These are places that let you spend 2-3 years 'undeclared', but they put on a song-and-dance about high school students having specific goals.
I'm sure some of them want applicants who do have a specific reason to attend Blah, but even then there's no excuse for the usual system. You can't plan your life around Professor X at Blah, because Blah has a 15% acceptance rate and accepts among qualified students more or less at random.
I remember that UPenn in particular had an essay prompt which was effectively "We're insecure, please praise us for 500 words."
Surely they'd like you to write about environment or purpose, but like with a first job as a kid, I think "the other place sucked / the classes weren't any good there" should suffice.
The Common App didn't save time for most students, it let them do more applications via the same number of essays. So yeah - those essays exist as a transaction cost to weed out the uncommitted.
For some, the answer is something specific like being a certain major for a certain reason (e.g., career path). For others, the answer is simply along the lines of "I want to explore a certain resource or resources you have and see where that takes me".
Elite schools have tremendous resources available to undergrads that simply don't exist in the same quantities or qualities (or even at all) at other schools. Besides the libraries and professors, there are also research institutes and labs that take in curious and hardworking undergrads. Many of them work on really cool stuff.
I realize that all people accepted to elite schools don't answer this question in a particularly interesting way, but this question is a trivially easy way to stand out in a positive way to reviewers.
Said another way, demonstrating that an applicant is genuinely curious about something that is a long suit at a given university is not really fluffing the university admissions officers -- it's just a practical thing to communicate.
In some sense, this is my actual complaint. I'm good at answering this question, but my ability to answer it wasn't actually a representation of my interest in a given school. All it took was finding something fairly impressive and unique about a school and talking about it with a mindset of "this is more appealing to me than the unique perks of other schools". Doing that was pretty easy even without actually caring about the school, so it felt more like a test of my creative writing than an expression of interest.
I suppose there were a few places that got closer to honest signals from me - they weren't the top of my list. Those were the ones that probably had best-in-class offerings, but didn't have any truly applicable to me, so my honest viewpoint was "if I don't get into X or Y, you have the third-best of this thing I want". For any top-tier place, though, I think I could have been convincing even with no intention at all of attending.
As for the UPenn essay, that one in particular felt more like fluffing than creative writing. I'd have to try to and dig up the specific prompt, but the distinction was basically that it didn't say "Why are we right for you?" but instead "Why are we objectively the best for anyone?"
Gah... I hope that has never been an actual question. That's terrible.
From http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/apply/whatpennlooksfor/essay...
The current questions on the common app are:
Common Application Essay Prompts for 2016 - 2017 (250-650 words)
1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
2. The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
3. Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?
4. Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.
5. Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.
And the Penn-specific question is:
How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying. (400-650 words) *For students applying to the coordinated dual-degree programs, please answer this question in regards to your single-degree school choice. Interest in coordinated dual-degree programs will be addressed through those program-specific essays.
Have they changed since you last saw them? These all seem reasonable.
Prompts and questions are designed purely to give someone a chance to pander and make nice sounding things up, rather than say the bald, simple truth.
No wonder some people found Trump appealing -- at least his pandering and lying was refreshingly frank and direct.
People like me exist. We are real. We exist in the blind spots of your world, taking genuine interest in things. Learning for no other reason than that we simply want to know more. To understand more. To have a fluidity with more knowledge, more understanding. You just haven't noticed. We don't have a manifesto or a webpage because we've got more interesting things to do.
You might have misunderstood my statement.
No, it means their parents and teachers scheduled their every waking minute and forced them to study.
> violin/piano implied artistic talent
No. The parents said they had to study it, nolens volens. Showing up for three years of violin classes you hate does not show talent.
> wanting to become doctor/lawyer suggests drive and ambition
Yes, their parents' drive and their parents' ambition.
Some answers of people I actually know were:
- conduct bleeding edge genetics research
- develop bespoke computer-based learning tools for schools (ones that were backed by amazing data and met the schools' sometimes overly specific legal requirements)
- influence directly and indirectly policy and laws related to the Internet (e.g, as a consultant to lawmakers, a professional witness, etc.)
While I realize that these examples are perhaps not the norm, it is not uncommon to move the needle in some field in some way for a high school or college student. Most people that age simply don't think big enough.
Even if applicants don't demonstrate these characteristics in their application, it's usually enough to show that they have some potential and/or desire to do these sorts of things.
I think really big, I believe. The problem is: I am not the kind of charismatic personality that is able to convince fellows to participate (friends would rather describe me as "brilliant scientist who tends to polarizes (in both positive and negative sense of the word) people"); so I am rather completely on my own - and the day only has 24 hours. :-(
EDIT: And what about people who honestly say that they are open to such ambitious projects but honestly admit that they first have to learn the ropes and if they get to a sufficiently high skill level, they will think about such ambitious question (in other words: It makes no sense thinking about these questions as long as you don't have the skills to work on them).
- If you haven't already, read more about Aaron Swartz. He was good or became good at persuasion.
- If you are "on your own", then you might just be wrong-minded or maybe just a poor communicator. The scope of what is possible on a figurative island is really small (in most fields) compared to what can be done by a group/team. Persuasion, communication, and leadership are high value-add skills. It might be prudent to learn about them and practice them.
- Ambitious projects are fine. Needing to develop skills is fine. Focus on taking small steps that you can actually take and succeed in to show that you are moving in an interesting direction. Read the PG essay "startup = growth, specifically the section on compass. He talks about hill climbing and local maxima in an interesting way. Work your way up the hill of good ideas gradually -- don't try to take a helicopter to the summit.
- I don't know what space you're working in, but there are almost always small neglected spaces in the sciences that will welcome a young no-name to do meaningful gruntwork that no grant-writing professional scientist can afford to do. Do this work, embrace it, and publish it. You will be loved.
I would not consider myself as not a poor communicator per se - people say my slide presentations are really great. It's rather that I really don't understand how other people work.
> Persuasion, communication, and leadership are high value-add skills. It might be prudent to learn about them and practice them.
I surely already read a lot more on this topic than most "good leaders" have. Of no avail (?). I try to convince people all the time to join my projects - of no avail.
People tell me the way to get better in leadership, communication, ... is tro practise more (IMHO a rather outlandish advice). I try it all the time - of no avail. I often cannot even imagine how other people think (and I am not able to reverse engineer based on their behavior what their inner thoughts might be). I typically have to go completely against my feelings and gut insticts when talking about or understanding feeling. But treating other people how I want to be treated is often a recipe for doom.
> I don't know what space you're working in, but there are almost always small neglected spaces in the sciences that will welcome a young no-name to do meaningful gruntwork that no grant-writing professional scientist can afford to do. Do this work, embrace it, and publish it. You will be loved.
I already do this in some sense (doing PhD on some very theoretical questions in some area of applied mathematics that few people on the world actually care about - still the questions are very exciting :-) ). The problem is that I have good reasons to believe that my days in science are numbered - and in the meantime I tend to believe that this might actually not be the worst thing, since how science is organized is IMHO broken in far too many ways and I believe I have found a potential secret emergency exit where I might work afterwards.
College admissions is more complicated than a GPA and a few checkboxes at ultra-competitive schools.