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Some basic facts about college admission in the United States: 1) Most colleges admit large numbers of students who are officially reported as "race/ethnicity

Some basic facts about college admission in the United States: 1) Most colleges admit large numbers of students who are officially reported as "race/ethnicity unknown." 2) The definition of "race" categories in current United States regulations is arbitrary, acknowledged by the Census Bureau to be unscientific, does not match categories used in any other country, and has changed several times in my lifetime. 3) "Jewish" has never been an officially regarded category in the United States for tracking data on the issue of college admission, but Jews once faced considerable barriers getting into many colleges. 4) The subset of United States high school students who are college-ready by what courses they have completed during high school has a much different "race" composition from the general United States population. Several of the replies in this interesting thread ask questions about the system in the United States, so I will refer here to the definitive FAQ about "race" in United States college admission, http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1366406-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-10-a.html http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/13664... so that those of you who like to look up reliable sources and check facts are able to do that about this contentious issue. The FAQ will have to be revised, of course, after the Supreme Court issues its opinion in a pending case (cited in the FAQ). Full references to the facts listed above can be found in the FAQ. The collection of "Jewish Problems" (very tough mathematics problems reputedly given to Jewish applicants to Soviet universities) by Tanya Khovanova and Alexey Radul on arXiv http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 is directly on-topic for the main submission here. How many of those problems could you solve to get into university?

pm90 14y ago
Ah, Russian problem sets! Brings back fond memories of high school spent desperately trying to crack these tough problems. Although surely not as challenging as the ones listed in the link, these were some of the toughest, yet the shortest problems, and solving every one of them was a challenge which, when completed, let to an inner sense of satisfaction so great, it was intoxicating...and addictive. In India, Russian authors (e.g Irodov, Kratov, Invanov) have a reputation of being incredibly difficult, yet having very elegant problems; while American authors had the reputation of writing long winded 'real-world' problems that took effort to first understand the context of, were illustrated by colorful figures etc (of course there are exceptions).

pm90 14y ago

Ah, Russian problem sets! Brings back fond memories of high school spent desperately trying to crack these tough problems. Although surely not as challenging as the ones listed in the link, these were some of the toughest, yet the shortest problems, and solving every one of them was a challenge which, when completed, let to an inner sense of satisfaction so great, it was intoxicating...and addictive. In India, Russian authors (e.g Irodov, Kratov, Invanov) have a reputation of being incredibly difficult, yet having very elegant problems; while American authors had the reputation of writing long winded 'real-world' problems that took effort to first understand the context of, were illustrated by colorful figures etc (of course there are exceptions).