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It depends upon how you see the "extra curricula activities". If it is not a passion but rather just a resume padding exercise to be "scored" why give it any weight at all?.
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Originally Posted by jazzarama
You'd need an admissions officer to answer that question. I suppose it's an indicator of varied interests, more than only an academic braniac, social interaction. Harvard, and other schools use it as a factor and in the Harvard ranking system, Asian-Americans ranked better than any other group.
Admissions officers want to see commitment to something outside of academics and they want good stories.
That commitment has to be strong. As one admissions officer once said to me "we want to see a tree (student) with strong roots (academics) and a few strong branches(commitment)...too many weak branches won't allow the tree to fully develop.
In essence, good grades and test scores are weakened by flitting from track to violin to working in a food pantry to building with Habitat to working a part time job. And that was Monday. They'd rather see a 2 season athlete, who is a scout, and plays drums at church and does it every week, week after week.
They also want good stories. 1st generation Asian kid who was raised by parents working 2 jobs living in North Dakota - good story. 1st generation Asian kid raised by STEM professionals in the best school district in the state - not such a good story.
That same admissions officer also noted a great story: Caucasian girl raised by a single mother, home schooled, and did well in standardized tests. Not too extraordinary except that Mom was a long haul trucker and that girl got her education in the passenger seat of the truck while experiencing North America. Schools were falling all over her.
For the most part, college entrance in America is based on test scores and GPA. If you don't have the scores, then you're not getting in.
That is life.
The sky is blue. What’s your point?
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Originally Posted by Volobjectitarian
I would.
I'd know I got in based on my intellectual merit, and that alone. Anyone who saw my degree from there would immediately know the same thing, therefore my degree would have higher value than one from a university that rewards skin color with test score normalization.
Give me the most rigorous, competitive entry test possible such that scoring well enough on it is seen internationally as a pretty singular achievement. By all means. Universities are supposed to be organizations where knowledge is grown, cultivated and transferred, and those who attend them are conferred degrees that tell a story about graduates that provide those graduates with opportunities. The more strictly merit based the acceptance/attendance policies are, the better the story told about graduates, thus te better the opportunities conferred by having graduated from there.
PS - I love when people denigrate "test taking" as if it is some sort of savant skill that is independent of collected knowledge and ability to access/recall said knowledge. Like "test taking" skill is akin to height or eye color, some intrinsic thing you have no control over and just "happens" no matter how much you study, learn, remember, etc. People who do well on comprehensive exams are smarter, know more, have studied more and prepared better than those who do not. It is not some trick of DNA or racial gift. It's straight up effort, time and dedication to a goal. The 1600 SAT is no accident, it's ~99% work and preparation.
No one is denigrating test taking. But tests aren’t the whole story...they’re a part of it.
Look, no matter what you think you know, you certainly don’t know more than the people that control admissions policies at their own schools. If they want their student bodies to look a certain way, why should I assume that YOU know better than they do?
Moreover, if I’m a student at Harvard, why should I care if my fellow student has a 1600 or a 1450? What business is that of mine? There are brilliant students that don’t ace SAT’s. When I was in college, I cared about MY education...what others got on their SAT didn’t interest me in the least and it still doesn’t.
Everyone at Yale or Cornell got in on their intellectual merit. They wouldn’t be there if they didn’t. But to infer that campuses should only have eggheads to the exclusion of other talents is stupid. Jared Kushner didn’t have the grades to get into Harvard, but he still got in and graduated. Is Harvard any less diminished? Should his classmates burn their degrees and start over somewhere else?
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Originally Posted by lifeexplorer
You are advocating racism right here. Why do we need both?
Nobody should be judged based on his/her skin color because if they are, that's the very definition of racism.
You judge people on skin color everyday.
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Originally Posted by MJJersey
Elitists have always been the biggest racists. First it was against blacks, then Jews, now the liberal racist elitists are going after the Asians. They hate whites too, but that’s a given.
Why is it a given? Because you think other whites are just like yourself? Lol
Why don't they just black out the names and races of the kids applying? You're really not doing anyone any good placing a kid in a school that they can not compete at.
Read up on grade inflation at Harvard. It's pretty much "everyone gets an A" in every class. I don't think it's particularly difficult for anyone they admit to graduate, the only thing they have to "compete at" is getting in.
Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than others on traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records filed Friday by a group representing Asian-American students in a lawsuit against the university.
Harvard may be right. How many Japanese or Chinese or Korean CEO;s you have in Silicon valley or for any big companies ?? They dont have the ruthlessness to succeed in cut throat American businesses.
Harvard may be right. How many Japanese or Chinese or Korean CEO;s you have in Silicon valley or for any big companies ?? They dont have the ruthlessness to succeed in cut throat American businesses.
What are you talking about? Just off the top of my head: Nvidia, Twitch, Rotten Tomatoes, Yahoo, and co-founder of Youtube.
This is just American companies. Many of them go back to China since they can't get US citizenship after graduating college and become founders there: Tencent, Baba, Baidu, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc are all huge tech companies.
Harvard may be right. How many Japanese or Chinese or Korean CEO;s you have in Silicon valley or for any big companies ?? They dont have the ruthlessness to succeed in cut throat American businesses.
Reads2Much, is this politically correct enough???
Tech companies, movie studios, auto companies-- the list, that you could have easily searched on the web beforehand, goes on and on.
it's not racism. It's not just about test scores, which these kids think should have the most weight.
If they just wanted test scores, they could go attend Berkeley. If you have ever been at Berkeley's campus and observed the Asians, you could see they have some important trait missing.
Like Einstein said, collectively they are more like automatons.... in the sense that they all prep for the SAT the same way, study music the same way, etc etc and are obedient yesmen.
It's like they're checking off all the boxes of the How To Be a High Scoring Student handbook, which unfortunately is missing the chapter about How to be a better human.
They don't really enjoy the crap they do, and you can really tell. A super selective school doesn't just want good test takers.
They need to be truly well rounded, or at least super passionate about something.
You can easily tell who is doing crap just to add it to a resume, and who is doing crap because s/he truly enjoys it.
Merely having a laundry list of extracurriculars is not enough.
it's not racism. It's not just about test scores, which these kids think should have the most weight.
If they just wanted test scores, they could go attend Berkeley. If you have ever been at Berkeley's campus and observed the Asians, you could see they have some important trait missing.
Like Einstein said, collectively they are more like automatons.... in the sense that they all prep for the SAT the same way, study music the same way, etc etc and are obedient yesmen.
It's like they're checking off all the boxes of the How To Be a High Scoring Student handbook, which unfortunately is missing the chapter about How to be a better human.
They don't really enjoy the crap they do, and you can really tell. A super selective school doesn't just want good test takers.
They need to be truly well rounded, or at least super passionate about something.
You can easily tell who is doing crap just to add it to a resume, and who is doing crap because s/he truly enjoys it.
Merely having a laundry list of extracurriculars is not enough.
You sound extremely racist and illogical.
The point here is not a "score only admissions system", but Harvard always gives low scores to Asians as a group.
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