Test scores have already been irrelevant for certain segments for over a decade, speaking as someone of East Asian ethnicity.
Personal anecdote: 3.7 GPA in average high school with 8 APs (some of which were self-study), 2400 SAT, 36 ACT, lots of state-level top 3 finishes in multiple academic competitions, varsity track, musical instruments, first generation immigrant, etc.
Ended up going to what I thought was my safety school and rejected/waitlisted at every reach school I applied to. I sometimes wish colleges mandated name/ethnicity-blind application reviews - not to sound ungrateful, but I’m still incredulous to this day that the best I could do was a public state school (still top 50 admittedly).
It ended up being a great experience in that it was a forcing function and made me realize most of these rules and expectations around admissions were meaningless. But I probably could have saved years in high school exploring things that mattered rather than optimizing for a college application process that didn’t ultimately end up feeling very fair.
Glad it worked out for you. Asian college applicants have it rough these days.
This is the President of Stanford speaking out of both sides of his mouth:
2022-10-12: "Stanford apologizes for admissions limits on Jewish students in the 1950s and pledges action on steps to enhance Jewish life on campus". Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne apologized on behalf of the university and pledged action on recommendations in a task force report confirming Stanford limited the admission of Jewish students in the 1950s.
2022-08-02: Amicus brief filed in support of Harvard and University of North Carolina “A diverse student body enriches the academic experience for all Stanford students,” said Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne. “Considering race as one part of holistic review helps us foster a diverse campus community, one in which all students have the opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences and to think critically about their own views and preconceptions. It also means that Stanford graduates from all backgrounds can go on to bring their unique insights to leadership roles in the government, business, and nonprofit sectors.”
> pledges action on steps to enhance Jewish life on campus
It seems Jewish life is already thriving on campus - despite being just ~2% of US population, they are 7/11% of Stanford's undergraduate/graduate students [1]. To put that into perspective, and excluding from analysis the 10% international students, they are 3.9x over-represented among non-international undergraduates, relative to their US population.
In contrast, white (including Jewish) undergraduates are only 32.6% of undergraduates, but 57.8% of US population [3]. Meaning non-Jewish whites are 25.6% of undergraduates, making them 0.49x under-represented.
So despite a Jewish person having a 7.9x greater chance of getting into Stanford than a non-Jewish white, Stanford's president is apologizing that this disparity isn't even greater.
I've feel I've reached a strange line of reasoning here where the OP complained about asian discrimination of college admissions, but the most recent reply seems to imply that asians are also over represented as well (~22% of Stanford, but 6% of US pop).
Any time I see this come up it always feels like asian students are being used a cudgel in order increase admissions for white students.
Fine, but then the reasoning against Jewish students doesn't stand. How can anyone, except for the Stanford admissions office, deduce whether or not Jewish students are over or under represented?
In my post, I specifically defined it relative to US population. But what you are implying is correct - in general, "over-represented" is subjective. Had I used only US population with SAT score above some threshold, the numbers would have differed.
In fact, it's past the time time to address your question, and start using the term consistently. Stanford themselves boast how "underrepresented minorities" are the fastest growing group [1], without defining the term. Presumably they mean relative to population, but somehow they don't count whites among that group, despite them being, at Stanford, both under-represented and a minority.
We would all greatly benefit if, instead of being so coy, they would openly state: "Yes, there are fewer non-Jewish whites than what would be expected from population numbers, but that is because they're just not smart enough."
After all, how can the conversation advance, if the participants are dishonest, hiding or ignoring data as is convenient?
There's literally a definition of under-represented groups in that article. What are they hiding? The whole point is that raw intelligence on some absolute scale (however measured) is not the only factor in admissions.
Their definition states which groups they consider under-represented, but not the criterion for under-representation. That this criterion is total US population (and not e.g. population with SAT score worthy of Stanford) is implied, not explicit.
The implication may be clear to you and I, but the post I replied to was literally asking what over-represented means (what, not who). Presumably they would ask the same of that Stanford article.
Dude, he is replying to a comment saying "over-represented among non-international undergraduates, relative to their US population.". I think it doesn't take a Ph.D. in linguistics to comprehend what everyone is saying here: some racial subgroup is represented at x% in total population but at y%>x% in the population under consideration.
You can disagree with it, as I do (where I don't expect every non-racial sub-population to show proportions of race corresponding to the total population) but how can you not comprehend what he's saying? Like, you don't understand it? Come on, postulate a few explanations in English for what it could possibly mean.
I continue to be amazed at the notion that anyone could walk the grounds of an elite university and conclude they discriminate against Asians. Why not focus on institutions where Asians are actually under-represented? Government, executive suites, Hollywood, sports, music, arts?
err... because Asians typically have to score higher/better on GPAs, exams, and such to get in than other ethnic groups. Yes, Asians are over-represented in US universities if comparing to the population of the US but are doing so despite the discrimination.
Also - grouping all Asian groups is racist in itself. It's implying that Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Thai, Vietnamese are the same, which is patently false.
Don't forget your demographic adjustments! The ~5% of Fortune 500 Board seats held by Asians corresponds roughly to the share of the population that's Asians who are citizens, fluent in English, and in the age bracket for that kind of position. As to "Hollywood" and "art"--let white kids waste their lives on such pursuits.
Just because you see a lot of Asians at Stanford doesn't mean that they aren't anti-asian. There should be even more of them given just how much better the average asian student is compared to the average student.
Wow, so what does it take to get into the top schools as an Asian?
My (Asian) kids are going to face the same challenges when they apply for college. When the time comes, I'm tempted to ease off the whole tiger parent thing, let them have a more well-rounded high school experience, and go to a public state school. It's what I did. Had to spend a few years clawing my way into a FAANG compared to graduates from fancier schools, but in the end it worked out.
IMHO, let your kids be kids, don't push them too hard. Life gives you lots of chances if you have a support structure - my family was full of fuckups but our parents were there for us and we all eventually made it through with good careers.
The main thing I want for my kids (they're still young - 7 & under) is to find things they're passionate about - things that makes them want to work hard and overcome a challenge. That could be school, sports, music, games, or whatever.
Of course, I'm just a random internet stranger, why would anyone listen to me :)
> so what does it take to get into the top schools as an Asian?
The comments below on how to get into an elite university (like Harvard or Stanford) have a fairly high hit rate when all of the boxes are checked. This is a fairly detailed and actionable list, but I am sure I left some important parts out (esp. regarding edge cases and corner cases). Feel free to ask follow-up questions if you have any.
My comments/suggestions:
-Strong grades and strong test scores will get a student into most state schools. This is a very solid baseline goal, imho. These same grades and test scores will be table stakes at elite schools -- more will be required in order to be admitted.
- Make sure your kids are actually interested in going to an elite school and making the extra effort that entails. If they are not, then steer them towards state schools. The comments below assume that they want to go to an elite school and are willing to make the extra effort.
- Take a challenging curriculum and get As with maybe a B or two -- the goal is to be top 5% of the graduating class, ideally the top 1%. Note that Bs (more than two) can be overlooked very easily if the rest of the application is strong. Note that the grade criterion can absolutely suck if your kids go to a high school that thinks that AP/honors classes just means that the students should be assigned more busy work. The busy work will take time away for them to do something that is actually interesting (see below).
- Learn how to write well. This will serve the student well in the application, HS classes, college classes, and life in general. Note that students will probably be rated on their writing skills by their references, and they will need to rate extremely highly (e.g., top 1% ever for this teacher).
- Do solid on the SAT. Contrary to popular belief, you do not need a perfect score. That said, a strong score is table stakes. Specifics below.
- My main advice for folks is to prepare for the SAT, mainly by taking practice tests with recent old tests at the same time and a similar location that the student will be taking the real test. The SAT is a marathon, and most people perform below their potential due to fatigue. Getting used to the long slog and the pacing of taking the test helps most people a lot. They will also be able to find gaps in their test-taking skills, and these are usually fairly easy to address when not under time pressure to do so.
- Math -- I would definitely aim for a perfect score in the Math (since it is fairly basic), but a slightly less than perfect score in Math is fine. Engineering people and folks who apply to MIT tend to have perfect or one tick below perfect.
- Verbal -- Most people try to game this a month or two before the test. Big mistake. My suggestion is to read well-written newspapers like NYT, WaPo, and WSJ as well as "high brow" magazines like The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and/or National Review. They should make note of every word that they don't know, and they would do well to learn them. This is easy to do over three or four years and tougher to do over one or two months. Bonus points if you, as a parent, discusses these articles with them so that they are reading critically rather than just casually. The text structures are the same types of (edited and abbreviated) text structures that they will see on the SAT.
- More than grades and SAT scores, the student should be able to impress one or two teachers that they are in the top 1% of students that the teacher has ever seen. Why? This is a common question on the reference letter form. I strongly encourage the student to check out the reference letter forms early in their high school career to see the manner and extent to which they need to impress the people who write them references. The student can do this by showing interest in one or more areas and really going deep into the subject beyond what is in the high school material -- basically, have passion for the topic.
- Also note that there are schools and teachers who know understand how the admissions game is played. The two things that these folks do that help a lot are: 1) to round up their rating of the student (e.g., if top 1%, maybe rate them "best I've ever taught"), and 2) to give detailed examples of outstanding work the student has done. The recommendations give credence to whatever it is that the student writes in their application. Picking who writes recommendation letters is a very important decision that I think many applicants put very little thought into. Not only do these teachers/people need to know you well, but they need to be able to write a good recommendation letter as well (this is a rare talent, imho, unless you attend an elite university feeder school).
- Related to grades/subjects, I would personally encourage students who can do it to enroll in a joint hs/jc program. There will be much less busy work, and one or more of the professors will know how to write a good recommendation.
- Try to figure out one or more areas in which they can do something notable at a national or international level. There is a wide scope of what this can look like, but this is where most people have a substantial gap in their application. This area can be social/leadership (probably the "easiest"), sports, arts, or academics (probably the toughest). I buried this relatively deep in the list assuming most people won't read this far, but this is the one thing that really sets aside exceptional applicants from threshold applicants who have great grades and test scores.
- Examples of "notable" (social/leadership): Start a successful business (ideally in an interesting area), start a non-profit that does meaningful work, develop a community program that makes meaningful change (esp. in under-served communities), develop some ongoing development aid project abroad (often seen in church missions), amazing Eagle Scout service projects. Note that all of these are starting or leading a group to new levels of success. Just participating is not enough (anyone can do that).
- Examples of "notable" (athletics): Be a recruited athlete, be an athlete that is not recruited but would be competitive on the university varsity team and expresses an interest to play at the university, win a state championship, be chosen as "all state" in your state (preferably first team), be on an Olympic team or on the short list development squad, win a regional (or wider) event in an "Olympic sport" (e.g., figure skating, ice skating, diving, swimming, etc. that might not be covered in HS sports). On a personal level, I would probably encourage folks to look at less common sports that can be excelled in at a young age -- competitive shooting, obscure martial arts (Japanese sword drawing, anyone?), noodling, etc.
- Examples of "notable" (arts): Be a published author, have an exhibit in a gallery, win a national/international competition (this might be easier than it seems if you're clever), be a national/international touring artist. Note that this can be combined with social/leadership by doing something like creating a highly regarded arts competition, creating a successful touring music group, etc.
- Examples of "notable" (academics): high placement in a nationwide math contest, be selected for the international science fair (a series of competitions), win a Westinghouse competition, publish a research article (as primary or a significant contributor). Note that this is the toughest category to stand out in, imho. The people who apply to elite schools are absolutely crushing this category. "Placed 3rd in state with HS trivia team", while commendable, won't really look that impressive or unusual when compared to a Westinghouse winner.
- With regards to the "do something notable" point made above, this something should be referred to in one or more of the student's references, otherwise it looks like it is completely made up and will probably be discounted. Supporting documentation helps (e.g., awards, newspaper articles, published papers, etc.), and be sure to send in this documentation as "supporting materials". If your kid is doing something special, I hope that they reach out to the press to have their special thing covered -- local news outlets love stuff like this, and it looks great in an application.
- Note that there are weird edge cases in admissions. As an example, UPenn is a private school, but they have to accept a certain number of PA residents per year. While there are extremely strong students from PA at UPenn, there are also some students who are relatively weak (and it shows). Also at UPenn, each of the four schools has an independent applicant pool, so the Wharton pool (9% admission rate) is different than the Nursing pool (25% admission rate). Not to pick on UPenn, but I happen to know details about these two examples.
- When applying to a school, the applicant should have a good reason for going to that school. "Because it is #1" or whatever doesn't cut it. The access to resources at elite schools is amazing, and the applicant should show that they have at least considered how they might utilize some of those resources.
- Note that many people who attend elite schools almost stumble into checking off all of the boxes above without realizing it. It's amazing how some people just randomly do the right things that pave the path to admission into an elite school, while others who try so hard to get into an elite school either do the wrong things (like overly focus on grades and SATs because someone told them to) or have someone else in the process (e.g., a teacher or guidance counselor) fail them.
- Some people think that what happens at elite schools is what makes their graduates so successful. This is true at the margins. Specifically, the access to specific networks of people that control high value parts of the nation and economy is exceptional, and people who avail themselves of this feature of elite schools will see an outsized return on their attendance at an elite school (secret: many/most don't avail themselves). All that said, many of the people who have crazy success after attending an elite school would also have crazy success after attending any school because they and their families are very well connected. Note that state schools also have these sorts of networks, but they are typically limited to the state or regional area in terms of scope.
- IMHO, the at-school opportunities available to a great student at a big state school (something that I think is relatively easy to be) is probably comparable to the opportunities available to a slightly above average student at an elite school (harder to be due to the admission's barrier). The reason is that most state school students are not ambitious and overly curious and extremely talented, so the best students stand out to the professors at state schools while they are relatively common at elite schools. I think the only potential "loss" of going to a state school is if a student would be one of the best both at the state school as well as being the best at an elite school (this bar is almost unbelievably high).
- Most people think that there is discrimination against Asians because they know or have heard of some Asian who got a perfect or near perfect SAT score and a perfect GPA (i.e., the "standard strong" applicant that is a dime a dozen at elite schools) and did not get into Harvard or Stanford or wherever. As I hope the above post has shown, that result is not surprising if their grades and SAT scores are the most compelling part of their application. Harvard's entering class this year is ~25% Asian (most being Asian-American). The threshold Asian folks who didn't get in probably look a lot like the threshold White folks who didn't get in -- they were very solid but didn't stand out or had one or more red flags in their application. As such, the goal is to be a strong admit applicant rather than be a threshold applicant and hope for the best.
- All of the above seems like a lot of work, and I suppose it is. That said, I think that most of it is something that ambitious and motivated people will be doing anyway just because they want to, and the rest is just polishing the edges (e.g., making sure to get good references).
- Lastly, Cal Newport has written some amazing books about "being a superstar" and "standing out without burning out". I recommend giving his books a read.
> Some people think that what happens at elite schools is what makes their graduates so successful...
Thanks for this comment. I think this is really important. I see so many families make huge sacrifices to try to get their kids into top colleges when they really dont seem like the type of kids to be elite class people. I grew up in a country where this didn't really exist so am a bit baffled by the whole game. I'm happy to take it easy and get a regular college, but worry my kids might miss out on some pot of gold.
> but worry my kids might miss out on some pot of gold
The default assumption should be that if your kids enter an elite school as $SES kids, then they will leave the same (SES = socioeconomic status). So a middle class kid will likely leave Harvard still a middle class kid due to their connections, way of perceiving the world, way of interacting with the world, etc. There usually is no pot of gold.
The dream of social climbing is often more of a rug pull than many middle class people realize since it doesn’t just end with school. Some folks with classic hard-working working class or middle class values will go to an elite school, do well, and then get a top job in IB, consulting, law school/law firm, or whatever, and they think they have made it. But then their career path just flattens after a few years of very grindy work. If the social climber did not make a concerted effort to develop a network of higher class friends (which is not easy if you’re not already in it, imho), then partner or whatever becomes much tougher when job performance is basically based on if they can make it rain or not via their social networks.
There are exceptions, typically in academics, in specializing in a topic or group of people that are foreign to northeast corridor people (e.g., oil people in Texas or car people in Detroit), or in certain organizations (e.g., Goldman was/is known for facilitating social climbing).
An example of one guy I know who made a big jump in SES (sort of)…
He came from a family of educators in small town Michigan, but had a very working class mentality (pro-union, kids did manual labor, etc.). The guy was obsessive about being rich from a young age — the type of guy who actually wrote himself a check for one million dollars dated for his 30th birthday and was hell bent on cashing it.
Long story short, he managed to work his way into a PE firm as a partner in his mid 30s after a decade of decent-but-not-great pay grindy work. His speciality was suppliers to Detroit auto manufactures. Note that he knew nothing about cars and the auto industry at the start, but he knew how to talk to Detroit people without sounding like a NYC shyster.
Made a bunch of money (mid 8 figures), closed down the fund, and retired in his early 40s in the Hamptons.
Note the path though… super grindy, didn’t really make it early, relied on his prior SES, a lot of social climbing, and a bit of luck to set himself apart and make it “big”.
This is not a path I would recommend to my kids unless they are hellbent on taking it like the example above.
The experiences I see of those who tried to social climb is that a lot of them hit mid-life and wondered where their high-trajectory career went. That “high-trajectory” was a class-based illusion, imho, and they didn’t do what it would take to make that illusion become real.
Apologies if this sounds overly cynical, but I think it’s important to debunk some of the myths about what makes the elite schools seem so impressive.
To end on a more positive note, I will say that elite schools often help folks reach the top end of their SES range, especially for upper middle class folks. So kids who come from families with wealth in the 10m range might end up with wealth in the 50m range, with a few making a bigger jump to lower upper class. This may seem like a big jump, but it is not functionally since that level of extra money largely just buys QoL improvements rather than access life changing levers.
There was a guy on HN who wrote a really good social class guide and what affordances each class gave you. I will try to find it and link it here later.
Michael O’Church had the original idea. I can’t quickly find a link to his original article in the internet archive (way back machine), but I think it’s still there.
I just got around to checking my HN replies. Thank you so much for writing this out. I'm at least a decade+ from having to put these plans into motion, but I'll refer back to it from time to time.
Something similar happened to me. I had a perfect high school GPA, 1540/1600 SAT. Applied to several schools, all of which I was above average score wise
Only got into flagship state schools that were well below my average SAT
The one thing I've learned from this (a valuable lesson): never, ever do the self identification. You'll always get fucked. Self identifying is always a mistake
If you don’t self identify you just get binned as white. Putting down mixed race is the standard workaround. It’s vague enough that you’re probably not lying and it avoids being labeled white.
I don’t understand this. Does race or does it not exist? If it does not, you should be able to put down any race when asked, since how can they prove it? If you said you’re black and walk in but clearly your skin tone is fairer than expected, do they have a color palette they hold up to your face and say “nope, sorry you’re too light to be black, or is there a generic test they force you to perform?
> do they have a color palette they hold up to your face and say “nope, sorry you’re too light to be black, or is there a generic test they force you to perform?
It’s more of a sniff test that is only performed at elite schools or for privileged positions (affirmative action and/or scholarships).
I knew a woman who identified as black who was lily-white. It turns out her grandfather (in the south was black), and the locally scandalous out-of-wedlock interracial relationship that produced one of her parents was a big part of her identity and influenced what she studied. She ended up at an elite school.
On the other hand, if someone puts a race on the application that doesn’t really match how they look and doesn’t have much in the way of explanation in their application, then I think that interviewers at elite schools would (at a minimum) be curious. This is especially true if the race selected would likely get them some sort of preferred admissions status.
With regards to Asians in particular, many (most?) Asians can reasonably put down multi-racial since there has been much racial mixing within Asian over the past few millennia. Whether that jibes in a US elite college application is a different issue.
At most schools, unless race confers someone a special status like affirmative action or scholarship eligibility, then no one cares. If someone got in specifically due to an inaccurate claim, then they run the risk of being expelled or even having their degree revoked for unethical behavior.
>then they run the risk of being expelled or even having their degree revoked for unethical behavior.
Have either of these actually happened? Someone put an 'innacurate' representation of their 'race' down and that happened? I'm trying to imagine how you could prove it. For instance, some theories hold that humans emigrated from sub-saharan Africa and thus most/all (even Americans) would be technically 'African-American' by some definition of the word.
It's my understanding that these forms request your self identified race thus there would be no wrong answer, you merely need to self identify for the second it takes to check the box.
Yes, people have been expelled and had their degrees from elite schools revoked for unethical behavior (usually academic misconduct).
Has it happened for misrepresenting their race on their application? I have no idea, since I don't keep up with such things. I would imagine that this situation is handled much more subtly and much earlier in the process (e.g., by noting that race doesn't match appearance in the interview and/or content in application). Said another way, if someone is able to con their way into an elite school via lying about their race, my guess is that they dodged the most likely filter (the admissions process).
That said, there is a blurb in almost all applications that says that folks can have their admission rescinded etc etc if their application is not true to the best of their knowledge.
There is also a code of conduct that says something similar regarding ethical behavior.
I've seen some whacky stories about these clauses being invoked, so anything is possible. Need an example, do a search for "the water buffalo incident" that happened at one of these elite schools (ostensibly for racial harassment under the code of conduct).
> With regards to Asians in particular, many (most?) Asians can reasonably put down multi-racial since there has been much racial mixing within Asian over the past few millennia. Whether that jibes in a US elite college application is a different issue.
By that exact same reasoning, couldn't literally anyone else do this? If we start blurring the definition, why does it conveniently stop there?
> couldn't literally anyone else do this? If we start blurring the definition, why does it conveniently stop there?
Sure.
I don't think anyone is getting dinged or getting special affirmative action consideration for listing themselves as unspecified multi-racial.
If someone checks a box that gets them special affirmative action consideration, and it makes up no part of their application, and it doesn't pass the sniff test at the alumni interview, then a note will probably be made that race, appearances, and application do not appear consistent, and they will proceed from there.
The admissions officers are looking for a compelling narrative to admit the applicant. It's up to the applicant to provide that compelling narrative.
If I were advising someone who is multi-racial with an affirmative action twist while not really looking the part, I would recommend that they make a note of it in their application. Note that being part Black while appearing very White usually has some impact on shaping the person's identity.
For reference, I knew one person at an elite school who would introduce herself in icebreakers as "My name is $NAME, and I am Black"... and her skin was extremely pale white. She had a Black grandfather who had a scandalous affair with a White woman (when and where that was not apparently acceptable) to produce one of her parents. She told us stories about how that impacted her identity. I imagine she may have written a little bit about it in her one or more of her admissions essays.
> If someone got in specifically due to an inaccurate claim, then they run the risk of being expelled or even having their degree revoked for unethical behavior.
This is actually what I’m asking. How do they measure your race? If you make the claim someone is driving under the influence, you have a defined blood alcohol level threshold and a way to test that. How do they do the same for race?
Well, if that is the case, then it would probably be hard to actually accuse the person of behaving unethically.
I'm extremely pasty white, blond hair, blue eyes, Norwegian last name. But 23 and me said that I have 0.1% North African ancestry, or 1 ancestor from ~1600 AD..so African American it is!
> Would they really? Was Elizabeth Warren punished by Harvard or UPenn for unethical behavior?
Good question.
Just because they can doesn't mean they will.
As I said elsewhere, I think that the most likely filter for race bamboozlers is in the application process when the stated race and the combination of application, references, and alumni interview does not tell a coherent story.
Regarding Warren specifically, I will honestly say that I don't think race mattered very much for her. I know it's a meme in certain circles, but she applied in a very different era, one in which admissions standards were much lower. Being capable and ambitious was probably enough regardless of her race. I could be very wrong about her specific case, but I am certain that the Harvard and Penn of that era was nothing like the Harvard and Penn of today in terms of competitiveness of admissions.
It makes me really angry hearing Harvard defend their racist admission policy, especially when you know it was designed to limit the number of Jews admitted.
> Personal anecdote: 3.7 GPA in average high school with 8 APs (some of which were self-study), 2400 SAT, 36 ACT, lots of state-level top 3 finishes in multiple academic competitions, varsity track, musical instruments,
I love how the GPA requires a decimal place of precision, yet musical achievement requires nothing more than listing the plural of "instrument."
My first thought is that maybe they didn't like your college essays. The funny part is that college essays are the most obviously biased towards the privileged. Poor people can't afford touring colleges, so their "why this college" essays can't be as specific. Meanwhile, the rich can pay someone to ghost-write their essays.
> Poor people can't afford touring colleges, so their "why this college" essays can't be as specific.
The "why this college" essay can trivially be addressed by looking through the university website.
Most applicants don't even do this.
A simple formula for this essay is:
- $APPLICANT has a demonstrated interest in $TOPIC(S).
- $ELITESCHOOL has $RESOURCES about $TOPIC(S) that $APPLICANT would like to explore.
This can obviously be iterated, expanded, and refined, but that's the basic formula for knocking it out of the park on that sort of essay.
Touring colleges has little to no impact on this essay.
Ghost-written essays also come across as shallow unless the parents also pay off teachers to write recommendation letters that corroborate the BS. It happens, but it's not common.
Sounds like a perfect job for a talented ghost writer. The problem with college websites is that only maybe 5% of is actually useful for essay writing. The rest is meaningless generic fluff. College tours allow you to experience some quirks of the school that you can sprinkle in to make your essay more interesting.
>Ghost-written essays also come across as shallow unless the parents also pay off teachers to write recommendation letters that corroborate the BS
You're comparing strong student with a modest background to a weak student from a privledged background. For students of equal ability, privledged ones have much better access to resources for writing a good essay. As far a recommendations go, that's also highly biased towards elite private schools. They have much smaller class sizes, so students are able to form much closer relationships with their teachers and teachers can write more personalized rec letters.
I suspect that you're greatly overestimating your BS-detecting abilities, which makes sense because you'd otherwise be hopelessly paranoid and cynical. My wife used to work part-time editing essays at a large college-consulting service, and it definitely helps. For example, simply by writing a lot of essays, you gain an intuition about how much you're able to BS without sounding fake. On their own, students are much more likely to overshoot or undershoot.
As far as my personal experience goes, my approach towards college essays was to write raw, avant-garde essays that obviously signal my personality. My writing skills weren't strong enough to make this work, but I could rely on the adults around me, a few of whom were alum at prestigious universities to refine the drafts into something that was actually coherent. I definitely couldn't have done this if I were from a poorer background.
Wow! East Asian here who didn’t do anywhere near as well as you with test scores (2200 SAT, no competition wins) but still transferred into a top 20 school. Can I ask when you applied for college? I’m class of 2012.
As someone who applied to college too long ago to remember anything - do you self-provide your demographics? Or do they try to guess what race/ethnicity you are based on your name?
You should vote your interests. The end goal here is a system of race-based patronage. Instead of just taking an objective test like an equal, your kids' futures will depend on breaking out sob stories to tickle the fancy of white gatekeepers. Not just for college. For jobs. For promotions. The sky's the limit.
Prop 16 failed, but that won't stop them. Asians at Meta and Alphabet look to your left and look to your right. One of you will be gone when corporate American implements the same policies as Harvard (which cuts Asian numbers in half). And who is standing in the way of that future? Republican judges.
There is another solution to this: inflation. As inflation eats away at income, assets and savings, true merit & productivity will be the only thing that matters. Look at big tech earnings today and the reaction in the stock market. Big tech can increase their EPS any time they want by shedding 50% of their workforce.
We're no where near such draconian decisions. But if we get there, the decisions will be based entirely on the financial contribution of an employee/team/project/department to the company's bottom line. I don't believe tribal/race/group affiliation will matter.
There is something missing from your story, but I can’t exactly figure out what it is.
Some things that may have gone wrong:
- Maybe your GPA was too low for your high school. If it put you outside of the top 10% or so of your class, then that hampers your chances substantially.
- Maybe your references did not know how to write good reference letters for elite schools. I think this limits a lot of people, since tepid reference letters from people who don’t know better can kill an application.
- Conversely, maybe you went to an elite university feeder high school. If so, maybe you didn’t compare well against other folks who did get into elite schools other than test scores.
- You applied based on academic prowess, and maybe your academic prowess was not enough for elite schools. Elite schools typically want national or international levels of success in something (especially academics, which is hyper-competitive), so maybe your state competition results combined with a relatively low GPA (for elite schools) didn’t really match up to the other 100-200 or so people at each school who got in on the back of academics.
- Maybe you didn’t have much/any significant community involvement and/or leadership experience. This may seem soft, but it makes applicants stand out, imho.
Fwiw, I don’t think your ethnicity played as much of a role as you think it did. Those killer test scores you have are basically table stakes at elite schools (i.e., you need a lot of something else to get in), but they are a meal ticket at large state schools. Many/most people think that test scores and above average grades alone should be enough for elite school admission, but this hasn’t been true for many, many decades.
For reference, “top 50 state school” is something like University of Georgia or Ohio State University, both the type of school that will not slow down someone who would have fit in at Harvard or Stanford, imho.
> But I probably could have saved years in high school exploring things that mattered rather than optimizing for a college application process that didn’t ultimately end up feeling very fair.
I guessing that you optimized incorrectly.
I’m curious about where you got your information on how to optimize for elite school admissions. Most people will say something like “have great test scores and great grades”, and they would be wrong for elite schools but very accurate for most state schools.
I don’t want to say that elite school admissions are perfect (or even good), but people who have never been able to see the processes from the inside (e.g., actual applicant pools) usually make very unreasonable criticisms of the processes.
Fwiw, every elite school tells applicants exactly what they want in their recruiting materials. It’s just that different people interpret those materials in different (usually inaccurate) ways.
Yeah, in hindsight fair to say a little bit of all of the above. I agree with a lot of what you mentioned.
At the same time - if I'd gotten 300-400 points less on the SAT, I likely still would have ended up at the same school. So in that vein my gut says the test scores were close to irrelevant. Or maybe not, I guess I wouldn't know.
Separately I think it's valuable to evaluate this through another lens. It sounds like you have some experience with the admissions process, and something I've been curious about for the longest time is this: if I had been in a slightly different segment, e.g. first-generation immigrant of non-East-Asian ethnicity, how would that have affected my chances?
Is it that test scores mattered less for me in this particular case, or is it that there's generally a higher bar because of competition from peers with similar East Asian backgrounds? In both cases it feels like test scores matter less overall (even if paradoxically the bar is generally higher!).
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> For reference, “top 50 state school” is something like University of Georgia or Ohio State University, both the type of school that will not slow down someone who would have fit in at Harvard or Stanford, imho.
This was the only piece I felt differently on. There's a significant advantage to attending a top school - the alumni network and a generally stronger and more well-connected student body for starters. Going to a state school didn't necessarily prevent me from finding success later in life, but I definitely took the long way around.
Let's be real, Stanford could fill it's entire freshman class with kids who got perfect GPAs and perfect SAT scores. That's not the deciding factor. You mentioned doing well in State level competitions but the elite schools of the US, Ivy+ etc, are the best schools on the planet. It's not surprising that you didn't get in given that fact. Their freshman classes are full of State Champions, National Champions, Olympiad Winners, Intel Science Fair winners, Published Authors, kids that have given concerts at Carnegie Hall, etc. I think you may have misjudged the level of competition. It's not 1940 when a perfect SAT got you into any school you wanted.
>This was the only piece I felt differently on. There's a significant advantage to attending a top school - the alumni network and a generally stronger and more well-connected student body for starters. Going to a state school didn't necessarily prevent me from finding success later in life, but I definitely took the long way around.
People have studied this and found that students that were accepted into elite colleges but ended up going to lower ranked schools had equivalent levels of achievement after graduation. So it turns out graduating from Harvard isn't as important as you think. Unless you want to go into IB or Big4 Consulting.
Getting into a top 5 school would have definitely been a surprise, but I also doubt the top 20 or even top 50 schools have equal levels of talent.
> People have studied this and found that students that were accepted into elite colleges but ended up going to lower ranked schools had equivalent levels of achievement after graduation. So it turns out graduating from Harvard isn't as important as you think. Unless you want to go into IB or Big4 Consulting.
This tracks but as mentioned elsewhere it's probably a longer journey all around. There very much is an in-crowd of connection pooling when you're an alumni of an elite school, from my experience of going to some meetups with heavy membership from them.
>Getting into a top 5 school would have definitely been a surprise, but I also doubt the top 20 or even top 50 schools have equal levels of talent.
I tend to think that that outside of like the top tiers of Harvard, Yale, Princeton and MIT/Caltech that the top 20 have student bodies that are basically interchangeable and it's a coin flip whether someone gets into UPenn but not Columbia or UChicago but not Vanderbilt.
>This tracks but as mentioned elsewhere it's probably a longer journey all around. There very much is an in-crowd of connection pooling when you're an alumni of an elite school, from my experience of going to some meetups with heavy membership from them.
You can short circuit this by doing a graduate degree. MBA from HBS is at least as good if not better than an AB from the College. But like I said outside of a few industries those connections aren't as valuable as you may think. Is getting a job in a VC firm easier as a Harvard/Stanford Alum? Sure, but least in theory though getting startup funding from a VC as a Harvard vs Michigan alum should be roughly equivalent in difficulty(lest we break the illusion of meritocracy in the tech world).
> It sounds like you have some experience with the admissions process
I do. Not as an admissions officer, but in a variety of advisory capacities to admissions offices over the decades.
> if I'd gotten 300-400 points less on the SAT, I likely still would have ended up at the same school
Maybe. It depends on the state school. I certainly hope that your scores and (maybe) grades got you access to some sort of honors or scholarship program that a significantly lower score would not have. If you were not in one of these types of programs, I am curious about why that is the case.
> if I had been in a slightly different segment, e.g. first-generation immigrant of non-East-Asian ethnicity, how would that have affected my chances?
My default answer is that it would not have affected your chances at all unless someone in your application process was racist. This would most likely have happened with someone who wrote a reference letter rather than someone affiliated with the universities.
The exception would be if your different ethnicity put you into an affirmative action category (specifically Black, Latine, or indigenous people). You might get in based purely on academics, but it seems like you would still be relatively average or weak in other areas. There would be a lot of other factors to consider (e.g., socioeconomic status, school/school district, geographic area, etc.).
While a few of the affirmative action admits are merely "standard strong" (i.e., not admit and not close because so many people are similarly strong while not standing out) who get in due to their race, many/most tend to be shine in other areas (esp. community leadership activities). Affirmative action basically gives some of these folks a slightly lower curve on academic rating, but their academics are (usually) good enough, and the other parts of their application made them shine. There is plenty to debate about whether that is a good policy or not, but I think that this is a reasonable policy if a specific kind of racial diversity is an institutional goal (as it seems to be). Almost all of the folks who get into elite schools are extremely impressive in some factor that the school values.
> Is it that test scores mattered less for me in this particular case, or is it that there's generally a higher bar because of competition from peers with similar East Asian backgrounds?
Without knowing more about your specific situation, my guess is that you focused on the wrong things -- specifically SAT scores over almost everything else.
As I have said elsewhere, no "strong admit" East Asian candidates are being denied admissions to elite schools because of a quota. Zero. None.
The folks who don't get admitted who feel jilted are typically "standard strong" (good grades, great SATs, nothing exceptional, will never get in) and the threshold applicants who just miss an offer because the whole package doesn't quite add up to enough (rare, but it happens). That said, lots of White people fall into these categories as well, so I don't think that it is specifically an East Asian phenomenon.
The issue of discrimination comes up because the average SAT scores of Asians is higher than that of other races. Some people think that is a sign of racial discrimination. This can be seen in articles that claim that Asian students need ### more SAT points to get into $ELITESCHOOL (prime example of misuse of statistics around the theme of correlation does not indicate causation). Personally, I think that this just points to a focus on test prep in the East Asian community that is consistently greater than other racial communities (by a lot).
> There's a significant advantage to attending a top school - the alumni network and a generally stronger and more well-connected student body
This is true... if the students avail themselves of this network. Most folks who are not already part of that network rarely do. I have found that there are relatively few people who effectively utilize this network during school or after school who would not have had similar access via another school and/or their already-existing family connections.
I call this the dirty little secret of the Ivies -- the Ivies largely don't make people successful, they just accept a large chunk of people who are already going to be successful and let them go to school there. There are a very small percentage of people of modest background who go to elite schools and then becoming someone exceptional via the school network, but that is extremely rare (for a number of interesting reasons, imho).
Note that state schools have similarly strong alumni networks, but the scope of these networks is usually state or regional rather than national or international.
The real exception in my eyes is if someone has relatively narrow ambitions to be an investment banker, a consultant, a supreme court justice, etc. (i.e., some line of work that almost exclusively consists of elite school grads). Yes, elite schools help with this tremendously. That said, I imagine that the elite folks in GA and OH society (which I listed as top 50 state school examples) are more likely than not graduates of UGA and OSU, and certain roles like state-level politicians, judges, business magnates, etc. are disproportionately from these schools.
Feel free to ask more questions. I feel like the misinformation on this topic is abundant, and I like to dispel as many of the myths as I can (at least based on my experiences).
I made very detailed reply to a concerned Asian parent who replied to you:
> There are a very small percentage of people of modest background who go to elite schools and then becoming someone exceptional via the school network, but that is extremely rare (for a number of interesting reasons, imho).
Would you mind expounding on these interesting reasons? I've heard a theory that it's because the truly powerful networks are established at prep schools such as Andover and Exeter, so the vaunted power of the elite university network is really an extension of the prep school network.
> My default answer is that it would not have affected your chances at all unless someone in your application process was racist. This would most likely have happened with someone who wrote a reference letter rather than someone affiliated with the universities.
Of course there was. An admissions officer saw it and they have to stop the school getting too Asian.
> An admissions officer saw it and they have to stop the school getting too Asian.
Where do you believe that this specific situation has actually happened this century?
I am fairly certain that this has not happened at any elite school in the recent past.
The worst actual evidence I’ve seen is of an admissions officer referring to a “standard strong” applicant as something slightly less flattering like “a familiar profile” Asian applicant.
Note that “standard strong” basically means great grades and scores and little else of significant note. This title defaults to non-admit.
Below is a link to a click-bait article that discusses the topic. Note how almost all of these “inappropriate” statements fall into the category of least charitable possible interpretations of the rater’s comments rather than the explicit malice that you seem to suggest is happening in admissions offices.
These are people who know that anything written down will eventually be used in a lawsuit. They’re not going to use slurs. I bet they wouldn’t even have any problem with their children marrying an Asian. But it’s their job to keep the Asian percentage down below what it would be if the student was White, and very far below what it would be if they were Black, among students with otherwise similar credentials. If that doesn’t qualify as anti-Asian racism what is it?
The reason the holistic admissions system was made up was to avoid having too many Jews. Now it’s used to prevent too many Asians.
Ended up going to what I thought was my safety school and rejected/waitlisted at every reach school I applied to. I sometimes wish colleges mandated name/ethnicity-blind application reviews - not to sound ungrateful, but I’m still incredulous to this day that the best I could do was a public state school (still top 50 admittedly).
It ended up being a great experience in that it was a forcing function and made me realize most of these rules and expectations around admissions were meaningless. But I probably could have saved years in high school exploring things that mattered rather than optimizing for a college application process that didn’t ultimately end up feeling very fair.