Asians checking "white" as college entrance strategy

[Undertoad]

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

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.

This is part of an overall trend where Asians are counted as "whites" for ethnicity purposes, at least in the US, both by accident and on purpose.

[jimhelm]

Well, why not?

Why is Mariah Carey considered black? Why the hell are there even boxes like that to check?

[SamIam]

Colleges and universities have traditionally used race based admissions as a means of affirmative action and a way of increasing the diversity of the student body. I doubt if institutions of higher education are exactly discriminating against Asians. Since Asians tend to score so well on SAT's etc., the pool of qualified Asian applicants is larger than that of other minority groups. So, a policy that started out as a way to get qualified minority students a college education has back fired in the case of the Asian population.

However, there are still many schools that admit students solely on the basis of their high school GPA, SAT scores, etc. The majority of Asian students have no difficulty in getting in to these colleges.

In what other instances are Asians counted as white?

[glatt]

Many colleges have "quotas." They don't call them that, but they do. They try to get a diverse student body, so they track all the different pigeon holes each applicant can fit into.

I live in Arlington VA, and the schools here are outstanding. But it's very hard for a student in Arlington to get into UVA because there are so many top students from Arlington applying to that top state school. It isn't enough to have straight As and perfect SAT scores.

But a student from the hills of western Virginia and a B average and 75th percentile SAT score can get into UVA without a problem.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by SamIam

I doubt if institutions of higher education are exactly discriminating against Asians. Since Asians tend to score so well on SAT's etc., the pool of qualified Asian applicants is larger than that of other minority groups. So, a policy that started out as a way to get qualified minority students a college education has back fired in the case of the Asian population.

So they are "exactly" discriminating against Asians. I get the idea that schools want a diverse population, but they are discriminating, there is no denying it. College admissions can never be "fair" so the schools set goals for what they want to look like. I know Cornell has slots reserved for kids from rural upstate NY. They still need to be excellent students and it doesn't hurt to be a ranked wrestler or runner.

[SamIam]

I agree, Griff. I guess what I was trying to say is that admissions discrimination is not about some sort of Jim Crow type attitude. Its like what Glatt said.

When I attended the University of Colorado back in the paleolithic, admissions were strictly based on SATs and standing in your high school graduating class. I lived in a woman's boarding house, and out of ten of us, two were Asian. One was a Japanese from Hawaii, and the other was a Chinese girl from Lebanon. I was fascinated by those two - they seemed so exotic to me.

[Lamplighter]

This whole thing about white vs asian vs black vs me

Remember in 2000 all the ads on TV trying to get Hispanics to not avoid the census.
The Census Bureau divides Hispanics into "white" vs "non-white" !

Check boxes for racial/ethic identity are a plague for programmers,
and I've never figured out what real information is to be gained from it
or how the data can used accurately.

[Lola Bunny]

Well, in the article, what Asian students are saying is that if you're Asian, your SAT score and GPA has to be even higher than average just to be considered because most Asians have straight A's and very high SAT scores. And as Glatt pointed out, there's quotas for diversity.

[footfootfoot]

Fred Astaire gets all the mad props but Ginger Rogers had to do the same steps backwards and in high heels.

That's the reason I always checked "Aleutian Islander" on my applications.

[classicman]

So there trying to take the spots of us dumb white people ... great.

[Griff]

[Tonto]Who is us white man?[/Tonto]

Smart move though, the poop would hit the fan if they checked African-American.

[Aliantha]

Official forms over here usually ask your country of birth followed up by residency status, but the only question about race as far as I can ever recall is whether you might be aboriginal or torres straight islander, and that's just because you'd get assistance for things like going to uni etc or for some health issues associated with those groups.

As Jim said, I don't see what the hell the relevance is. It's outright racism to discriminate against any applicant based on what they look like. Students should be protesting this instead of some of the other shit stupid things they protest about.

[Aliantha]

And to add to that, most asian people I know have lighter skin than I do.

[Rhianne]

I've been to Asia. I saw it all in an afternoon.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

It's outright racism to discriminate against any applicant based on what they look like. Students should be protesting this instead of some of the other shit stupid things they protest about.

Yebbut, reverse racism happens everyday and not just in test scores being lower for some groups (non-white) than others.