14 ms·

Anecdotal evidence as an Asian male: way back when I was in high school, I applied to a particular brand name university in the US. In my class, I had the best

by ken47 9y ago

Anecdotal evidence as an Asian male: way back when I was in high school, I applied to a particular brand name university in the US. In my class, I had the best or second best admissions profile. The rest weren't really even close. I was not accepted by this university, but fellow students from much more desirable demographic groups (from an affirmative action perspective) were. They were all wealthy, quite possibly from wealthier families than my own. And they had different skin color and/or gender. These were students who couldn't even handle AP calculus (and if you knew the name of this university, you'd be shocked), let alone match my extracurricular activities, test scores, etc. One of them had enough self awareness and integrity to apologize to me, and openly blamed affirmative action for her being accepted instead of me. The others let it get to their heads.

Mononokay 9y ago
There really needs to be more press on the experiences of Asians when dealing with college apps - reading that made me feel gross; it's sickening to me that that's considered okay by so many people.
- TheFullStack 9y ago
  There would be if people cared. No one does. The only people not surprised by any of this is Asians. I not only had to be better than my peers to get into Cornell, I had to be MUCH better. So it goes. It could be worse...
prepend 9y ago
Similarly, my school only had one Ivy League acceptance. The student was from an extremely wealthy family and had tutors and camps and essay consultants. They had mediocre extra curricular, 70% sat/act and 3.5gpa and were accepted. The valedictorian has amazing everything but was Vietnamese and was turned down from every Ivy League. Sad because his family was really poor and he was a real bootstrap puller, etc. From a cosmic justice standpoint, the valedictorian is now pretty wealthy 35 years later and the ivy leaguer never worked and lived off family and spouse money.

by ken47 9y ago

Mononokay 9y ago

There really needs to be more press on the experiences of Asians when dealing with college apps - reading that made me feel gross; it's sickening to me that that's considered okay by so many people.

TheFullStack 9y ago
There would be if people cared. No one does. The only people not surprised by any of this is Asians. I not only had to be better than my peers to get into Cornell, I had to be MUCH better. So it goes. It could be worse...

prepend 9y ago

Similarly, my school only had one Ivy League acceptance. The student was from an extremely wealthy family and had tutors and camps and essay consultants. They had mediocre extra curricular, 70% sat/act and 3.5gpa and were accepted. The valedictorian has amazing everything but was Vietnamese and was turned down from every Ivy League. Sad because his family was really poor and he was a real bootstrap puller, etc. From a cosmic justice standpoint, the valedictorian is now pretty wealthy 35 years later and the ivy leaguer never worked and lived off family and spouse money.