Asian disadvantage reveals flaw in college admissions process

January 17, 2012 — by Vivian LeTran

In the nationality section of the Common App and other college application forms, students are asked to check the boxes that apply most to their ethnicity. According to a recent article from the Associated Press, Asians have a disadvantage at getting into elite colleges, and students who are half Asian, half Caucasian are advised to only check the Caucasian box.

In the nationality section of the Common App and other college application forms, students are asked to check the boxes that apply most to their ethnicity. According to a recent article from the Associated Press, Asians have a disadvantage at getting into elite colleges, and students who are half Asian, half Caucasian are advised to only check the Caucasian box.

Senior Sarah Lensch, however, thought otherwise when she filled out her college applications this past fall. Lensch, who is half German and half Chinese, felt uncomfortable with ignoring her Asian half, a side that has played an equally important part in shaping who she is today. In addition, one of her college essays is about her dual ethnicity.

The desire to selectively reveal racial information to colleges stems from a study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade that showed Asians needed a higher average SAT score to be accepted into top colleges than other ethnicity groups in 1997.

As colleges become more selective, students across the nation look for ways to gain an advantage and catch the admissions officers’ eye. However, students should not have to resort to tricks or lies about their identity to get into college. The fact that simply being Asian even has the possibility of being a disadvantage should be considered racism and reveals a flaw deep in the college admissions process.

Many colleges have race-sensitive admission standards or so-called “quotas” for different ethnicities to maintain the college’s diversity. While these quotas do help some minority groups, this method is disadvantageous to other groups, such as Asian students.

Many top private colleges that have race consideration in admissions, such as Yale or Princeton, are about 15 percent Asian. On the other hand, the UC schools were banned in 1996 by Proposition 209 from considering admission by race, sex or ethnicity.

As a result, UC Berkeley and UCLA are roughly 40 percent Asian. The vast difference between the percentage of Asian students at these schools reveals an injustice in the college admissions process. It treats students as mere ingredients or playing pieces and not as human beings.

While heritage is important, it is not the sole factor to a person’s individuality. Limiting the number of students per ethnicity group is unfair and biased to students who may be more qualified than others, but are rejected to merely fulfill the college’s diversity quota.

Whether it is right or wrong for half Asian, half Caucasian students to respond by hiding a part of their identity, colleges should rethink their race-sensitive admissions process simce it unjustly hurts many overqualified students.

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