<p><pre><code> Chinese students are products of an educational system that, for all of its high achievers, is built to suppress intellectual curiosity, creativity and individuality – the very qualities that American admissions officers value most.
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Let's not pretend Chinese students are turned away because they lack individuality.<p>The fairly well documented[0][1][2] truth here is that American universities are using qualities like "leadership" to justify what is really a quota on Asian students.<p>I totally understand that none of the evidence is conclusive, but the fact that this is happening to Asian American students, who for the most part never go through the Chinese educational system this particular article blames, should at least cast a good amount of doubt on their claim.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harberson-asian-american-admission-rates-20150609-story.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harberson-asian-a...</a><p>[1] <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-american-organizations-seek-federal-probe-of-harvard-admission-policies-1431719348" rel="nofollow">http://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-american-organizations-see...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://priceonomics.com/post/48794283011/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-against-asians" rel="nofollow">https://priceonomics.com/post/48794283011/do-elite-colleges-...</a>
Tangential Asian-National Students in US University Anecdote Time:<p>I attended a rather prestigious Graduate School program in the Liberal Arts at a state school. Education specifically. Campus population in the tens of thousands.<p>In some classes, I actually felt like part of a minority. There were consistently large populations Asian nationals in the field. Many nationalities, mind you, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and maybe one or two others. Teachers in their home country, they were attending to get the US Masters/PhD with every intention of returning home and getting a raise.<p>Yes, they did participate well in the learning environment, language issues aside, but more than one got homesick and would quit the program due to culture shock of living in the US for 2+ years. I can sympathize.<p>My takeaway was that the University was very happy to take the (presumably) higher tuition from foreign students primarily interested in the Degree for status advancement than turn them away. It could help keep a department going in a way, and, in turn, the University didn't worry that these graduates were going to stick around and try to get US jobs on those degrees. It kind of wasn't the bargain.<p>It is worth noting, I think, that most of the Asian national students in my program or field were in their 30s or 40s. They had life experience, families, professional careers...I guess the point of the reflection is the University got a good revenue stream and the Graduates got their Degree for status back home. Win-win? Ehhhh...
Part deux: What Asian students go through once they get their degrees from American Universities.<p>They go down the rabbit hole of America's broken immigration system, starting with OPT visa, then H1B (read lottery luck, not based on skills) & then the country based quota for green card currently 7 to 9 years for EB2 categories for India & China. Did I forgot to mention the exorbitant out of state tuition fees and the loans they took for it in their home country ?
My statistics graduate program was about 2/3 Chinese with very poor English skills. This lead to complete self-segregation and a horrible TA experience for undergrads they were assigned to. To boot, cheating in this group was rampant.
Regarding the children of famous/important people, perhaps someone can shed some light.<p>How exactly do you specify on your application who your parents are?<p>I remember the process at Oxford, there wasn't really a way to say "oh btw my dad is a rock star" other than the personal statement. And it's hardly going to impress the person who's interviewing you to blurt out something like that, because all the questions are technical.
They forgot to mention the SEVIS record madness (want to know what the muslim registry will look like?), I20, being heckled or killed in the streets and casual border crossing racism by the CBP.
Christ almighty, I wish I could share the actual source, but I can't find it.<p>There was a study a decade(?) ago that took a look at 'Top Schools' and instead of looking at the best students, they took a look at the <i>worst</i> students. They took out the legacy children, the athletes, etc, and only looked at the kids that got in on their 'merits'. Typically, the schools will have a ranking system that combines GPA, ACT, SAT, etc. The researchers (out of Michigan, maybe?) then looked at the bottom people in that ranking order that accepted into the schools.<p>I read the popular press article about it (Wired?) where they focused on a kid from Arizona that got into Stanford. He was super passionate about this park near his house that he hiked in. His grades and whatnot were average at best. When budget cuts closed the park, the guy fundraised and solicited the state house until the park re-opened. He applied to Stanford on a lark, and got in mostly based on the essay about the park closure.<p>The researchers concluded that the 'bottom' kids that got into super elite schools were are very unique, but similar in one way: They were super passionate about one specific thing. These kids were <i>really</i> spiky, not well-rounded. Effectively, Stanford et al. were actually asking the kids to come to their schools. These kids really didn't need the schools to begin with, they were going to continue doing their thing anyways. But those schools wanted those kids because of that passion.<p>So maybe then we should be trying to go for that approach when it comes to education for our children. Maybe we should be trying to make them super passionate about one specific thing and not trying to be well rounded; a 'T' shaped mind where they have a little bit of know-how about a lot of stuff and a lot of know-how about one thing instead of a '---' shaped mind where they know a little bit about a whole ton of things.<p>If anyone knows where the original paper is, PLEASE link it!