[TheRox]

This is creating quit the buzz:

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/10/too-asian/

When Alexandra and her friend Rachel, both graduates of Toronto’s Havergal College, an all-girls private school, were deciding which university to go to, they didn’t even bother considering the University of Toronto. “The only people from our school who went to U of T were Asian,” explains Alexandra, a second-year student who looks like a girl from an Aritzia billboard. “All the white kids,” she says, “go to Queen’s, Western and McGill.”

Alexandra eventually chose the University of Western Ontario. Her younger brother, now a high school senior deciding where he’d like to go, will head “either east, west or to McGill”—unusual academic options, but in keeping with what he wants from his university experience. “East would suit him because it’s chill, out west he could be a ski bum,” says Alexandra, who explains her little brother wants to study hard, but is also looking for a good time—which rules out U of T, a school with an academic reputation that can be a bit of a killjoy.

Or, as Alexandra puts it—she asked that her real name not be used in this article, and broached the topic of race at universities hesitantly—a “reputation of being Asian.”

Discussing the role that race plays in the self-selecting communities that more and more characterize university campuses makes many people uncomfortable. Still, an “Asian” school has come to mean one that is so academically focused that some students feel they can no longer compete or have fun. Indeed, Rachel, Alexandra and her brother belong to a growing cohort of student that’s eschewing some big-name schools over perceptions that they’re “too Asian.” It’s a term being used in some U.S. academic circles to describe a phenomenon that’s become such a cause for concern to university admissions officers and high school guidance counsellors that several elite universities to the south have faced scandals in recent years over limiting Asian applicants and keeping the numbers of white students artificially high.

Although university administrators here are loath to discuss the issue, students talk about it all the time. “Too Asian” is not about racism, say students like Alexandra: many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like (too bad for them, most will say). Asian kids, meanwhile, say they are resented for taking the spots of white kids. “At graduation a Canadian—i.e. ‘white’—mother told me that I’m the reason her son didn’t get a space in university and that all the immigrants in the country are taking up university spots,” says Frankie Mao, a 22-year-old arts student at the University of British Columbia. “I knew it was wrong, being generalized in this category,” says Mao, “but f–k, I worked hard for it.”

That Asian students work harder is a fact born out by hard data. They tend to be strivers, high achievers and single-minded in their approach to university. Stephen Hsu, a physics prof at the University of Oregon who has written about the often subtle forms of discrimination faced by Asian-American university applicants, describes them as doing “disproportionately well—they tend to have high SAT scores, good grades in high school, and a lot of them really want to go to top universities.” In Canada, say Canadian high school guidance counsellors, that means the top-tier post-secondary institutions with international profiles specializing in math, science and business: U of T, UBC and the University of Waterloo. White students, by contrast, are more likely to choose universities and build their school lives around social interaction, athletics and self-actualization—and, yes, alcohol. When the two styles collide, the result is separation rather than integration.

The dilemma is this: Canadian institutions operate as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, and admirably so. Privately, however, many in the education community worry that universities risk becoming too skewed one way, changing campus life—a debate that’s been more or less out in the open in the U.S. for years but remains muted here. And that puts Canadian universities in a quandary. If they openly address the issue of race they expose themselves to criticisms that they are profiling and committing an injustice. If they don’t, Canada’s universities, far from the cultural mosaics they’re supposed to be—oases of dialogue, mutual understanding and diversity—risk becoming places of many solitudes, deserts of non-communication. It’s a tough question to have to think about.

Asian-Canadian students are far more likely to talk about and assert their ethnic identities than white students. “I’m Asian,” says 21-year-old Susie Su, a third-year student at UBC’s Sauder School of Business. “I do have traditional Asian parents. I feel the pressure of finding a good job and raising a good family.” That pressure helps shape more than just the way Su handles study and school assignments; it shapes the way she interacts with her colleagues. “If I feel like it’s going to be an event where it’s all white people, I probably wouldn’t want to go,” she says. “There’s a lot of just drinking. It’s not that I don’t like white people. But you tend to hang out with people of the same race.”

Catherine Costigan, a psychology assistant prof at the University of Victoria, says it’s unsurprising that Asian students are segregated from “mainstream” campus life. She cites studies that show Chinese youth are bullied more than their non-Asian peers. As a so-called “model minority,” they are more frequently targeted because of being “too smart” and “teachers’ pets.” To counter peer ostracism and resentment, Costigan says Chinese students reaffirm their ethnicity.

The value of education has been drilled into Asian students by their parents, likely for cultural and socio-economic reasons. “It’s often described that Asians are the new Jews,” says Jon Reider, director of college counselling at San Francisco University High School and a former Stanford University admissions officer. “That in the face of discrimination, what you do is you study. And there’s a long tradition in Chinese culture, for example, going back to Confucius, of social mobility based on merit.”

Demographics contribute to the high degree of academic success among Asian-Canadian students. “Our highly selective immigration process means that we get many highly educated parents, so they have similar aspirations for their children,” says Robert Sweet, a retired Lakehead University education prof who has studied the parenting styles of immigrants as they relate to education. Sweet’s latest study, “Post-high school pathways of immigrant youth,” released last month, found that more than 70 per cent of students in the Toronto District School Board who immigrated from East Asia went on to university, compared to 52 per cent of Europeans, the next highest group, and 12 per cent of Caribbean, the lowest. This is in contrast to English-speaking Toronto students born in Canada—of which just 42 per cent confirmed admission to university.

Diane Bondy, a recently retired Ottawa-area guidance counsellor, notes that by the end of her 20-year career, competition among some Asian parents had reached a fever pitch. “Asian parents do their homework and the students are going to U of T or they’re going to Queen’s,” says Bondy, who points out that “Asians get more support from their parents financially and academically.” She also observed that the focus on academics was often to the exclusion of social interaction. “The kids were getting 98 per cent but they didn’t have other skills,” she says. “Their parents would come in and write in the resumé letters that they were in clubs. But the kids weren’t able to do anything in those clubs because they were academically focused.”

Students can carry that narrow scope into university, where they risk alienating their more fun-loving peers. The division is perhaps most extreme at Waterloo, where students have dubbed the MC and DC buildings—the Mathematics & Computer Building and the William G. Davis Computer Research Centre, respectively—“mainland China” and “downtown China,” and where some students told Maclean’s they can go for days without speaking English. Writes one Waterloo mathematics graduate on an online forum: “I once had a tutorial session for the whole class where the TA got frustrated with speaking English and started giving the answer in Mandarin. A lot of the class understood his answer.”

“My dad said if you don’t go into engineering, I won’t pay your tuition,” says Jason Yin, a Taiwanese software engineering student at Waterloo. “They are very traditional. They believe school is about work, studying, go home and studying some more.” Hard-studying Waterloo lends itself particularly to those goals. “We had a problem getting students out of their bedrooms,” says Nikki Best, a former residence don who sits on Waterloo’s student government, who explains they “didn’t want to get behind in their grades because of coming out to social events.”

That’s not to say Asian students form any sort of monolithic presence on Canadian campuses. “The mainland China group tends to stick together,” says Anthony Wong, 19, a Waterloo software engineering student. “We can talk to them,” says Jonathan Ing, also 19 and in Waterloo’s software engineering program, “but we don’t mingle.” Complains Waterloo student Simon Wang, a Chinese national who is frustrated by the segregation at Waterloo: “Why bother to come to Canada and pay five times as much to speak Chinese?” Meanwhile, Calgarian Joyce Chau identifies as “completely whitewashed,” a “banana”: “I look Asian but I’m white in all other respects.” Chau, a 19-year-old UBC business student, lived in residence her first year, where she met the majority of her (white) friends. “It’s harder to integrate into a group with Asians—you may or may not get introduced,” says Chau, who accepts the segregation as just “part of the university experience.”

Such balkanization is reflected in official student organizations: there is little Asian representation on student government, campus newspapers or college radio stations. At UBC, where the student body is roughly 40 per cent Asian, not one Asian sits on the student executive. Same goes for Waterloo. Asian students do, however, participate in organizations beyond the university mainstream, and long-standing cultural clubs function as a sort of ad hoc government. “After you graduate you won’t care about student government, but you’ll care about your club,” says Stan He, president of the Dragon Seed Connection, an on-campus Chinese club with over 300 members. (His business cards feature both dragon and robot motifs.) The Dragon Seed offers its members social functions, tutoring help, volunteer opportunities, poker and mah-jong tournaments, and special holiday parties—including at Halloween and Christmas. It even has an exclusive partnership with Solid Entertainment, a promotions and events-planning company that sponsors massive fundraising events and gives Dragon Seed exclusive selling rights on campus. He says that the dozen or so Asian clubs at UBC serve well over 4,000 students and cater to the whole spectrum of cultural identification—from “whitewashed” to “Honger,” a once-pejorative term now adopted by students with Hong Kong backgrounds. The Dragon Seed lies somewhere in between—“We’re the middle ground,” He says. “We have international students, but we all speak English.”

Or take the Chinese Varsity Club. With upwards of 500 members, it’s the largest student social club at UBC. The executives say they’ve captured a niche market: Chinese commuter students from the outlying Richmond, Burnaby and North Vancouver communities who hope to find a social network at the big school. “Students from high school already hear about us from older brothers and sisters,” says Peter Yang, the 21-year-old accounting student who is the club’s VP external. “You want to break out of the cycle of studying and being lonely,” says Brian Cheung, its president.

The impact of high admissions rates for Asian students has been an issue for years in the U.S., where high school guidance counsellors have come to accept that it’s just more difficult to sell their Asian applicants to elite colleges. In 2006, at its annual meeting, the National Association for College Admission Counseling explored the issue in an expert panel discussion called “Too Asian?” One panellist, Rachel Cederberg—an Asian-American then working as an admissions official at Colorado College—described fellow admissions officers complaining of “yet another Asian student who wants to major in math and science and who plays the violin.” A Boston Globe article early this year asked, “Do colleges redline Asian-Americans?” and concluded there’s likely an “Asian ceiling” at elite U.S. universities. After California passed Proposition 209 in 1996 forbidding affirmative action in the state’s public dealings, Asians soared to 40 per cent of the population at public universities, even though they make up just 13 per cent of state residents. And U.S. studies suggest Ivy League schools have taken the issue of Asian academic prowess so seriously that they’ve operated with secret quotas for decades to maintain their WASP credentials.

In his 2009 book No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, Princeton University sociologist Thomas Espenshade surveyed 10 elite U.S. universities and found that Asian applicants needed an extra 140 points on their SAT scores to be on equal footing with white applicants. Scandals over such unfair admissions practices have surfaced in recent years at Stanford, Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley and elsewhere. Hsu, the Oregon physicist, draws a comparison between Asian-Americans and Jewish students who began arriving at the Ivy League in the first half of the last century. “You can find well-documented internal discussions at places like Harvard and Yale and Princeton about why we shouldn’t admit these people, they’re working so hard and they’re so obviously ambitious, but we want to keep our WASP pedigree here.”

To quell the influx of Jewish students, Ivy League schools abandoned their meritocratic admissions processes in favour of one that focused on the details of an applicant’s private life—questions about race, religion, even about the maiden name of an applicant’s mother. Schools also began looking at such intangibles as character, personality and leadership potential. Canadian universities, apart from highly competitive professional programs and faculties, don’t quiz applicants the same way, and rely entirely on transcripts. Likely that is a good thing. And yet, that meritocratic process results, especially in Canada’s elite university programs, in a concentration of Asian students.

The upshot is that race is defining Canadian university campuses in a way it did not 25 years ago. Diversity has enriched these schools, but it has also put them at risk of being increasingly fractured along ethnic lines. It’s a superficial form of multiculturalism that is expressed in the main through segregated, self-selecting, discrete communities. It would behoove the leadership of our universities to recognize these issues and take them seriously. And yet, that’s exactly what’s not happening. Indeed, discussions with Canada’s top university presidents reveal for the most part that they are in a state of denial.

“This is a non-issue,” wrote U of T president David Naylor in an email. “We’ve never had a student complain about this. In fact, this is a false stereotype, as we know that Asian students are fully engaged in extracurricular activities. So the whole concept is false.”

As Cheryl Misak, the U of T’s VP and provost, puts it: “We have a properly diverse mix, with no particular group extra prominent—we’re the rainbow nation and we’ve got every sort of student and everyone is on merit.” Waterloo president Feridun Hamdullahpur echoes a similar sentiment. “There is a great tendency in our society to learn more about other nations and other cultures,” he says. “Universities are the hotbed of these kind of activities. If you want to see more economic and political diversity, I think they star.”

These positions arguably represent a missed opportunity. Universities have the potential of establishing real cultural change. It makes sense that the head of the Canadian university with perhaps the highest number of Asian students is the most candid and the most concerned. Indeed, Stephen Toope has, since his arrival in 2006 as UBC president, made the issue central to his agenda—including outreach and newspaper op-ed pieces touting the importance of making the university campus a meeting place not only of diversity but also of dialogue.

Among Canadian universities, UBC is one of the few institutions that publishes the ethnic makeup of its student body. Toope says that the university’s Asian student population is not “widely out of whack with the community,” although the stats tell a slightly different story. According to a 2009 UBC report on direct undergraduate entrants, 43 per cent of its students self-identify as ethnically Chinese, Korean or Japanese, as compared to 38 per cent who self-identify as white. Although Vancouver is a richly diverse city, according to data from the 2006 census, just 21.5 per cent of its residents identify as a Chinese, Korean or Japanese visible minority.

Toope says drawing the various communities present on Canadian campuses into a common medium can be challenging. “Across Canada it isn’t always the case that you’re seeing as much engagement from the new communities as perhaps we should,” he says. Toope uses the experience of Turkish immigrants in Germany as a cautionary tale—“there are groups that never find a way to participate in the broader community.” Such circumstances persist precisely because the issue of race is not attacked head on. “I don’t want to pretend that just because you have people from different backgrounds they’re going to interact—they’re not,” Toope says. “We have to actually create mechanisms, programs and opportunities for people to interact. A university is one of the places that has the greatest capacity to work through demographic change.”

Toope points us in the right direction. It’s unfair to change the meritocratic entry system, so all universities can do—all they should do—is encourage groups to mingle. Though it’s true that universities—U of T and Waterloo included—do have diversity programs and policies for students, newer, fresher ways are needed to help pry the ethnic ghettos open so everyone hangs out together. Or at least they have the chance to. The white kids may not find it’s too Asian after all. Alexandra, who chose to go to Western for the party scene, found she “hated being away from home” and moved back to Toronto. In retrospect, she didn’t like the vibe. “Some people just want to drink 23 hours a day.” Alexandra says she still has friends at Western who live in an “all-blond house” and are “stick thin.” Rachel, Alexandra’s friend, says Western suits them—“they work hard, get good grades, then slap on their clubbing clothes.” But it didn’t suit Alexandra. She now studies at U of T.

Tags: International Students, macleans, racial diversity, Too Asian, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, university of waterloo, university rankings, university rankings issue
Posted in Canada | 2030 Comments

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http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/10/too-asian/ printed on Nov 22, 2010

[TheRox]

I don't know why people are screaming racism..when Maclean's is just stating the obvious.

What annoys me is that some other schools (other than U of T) are easier...like Western, Queen's...I didn't know they had lower standards once you get in.

[Balzz]

"Asians are the new Jews"

Nice one Macleans :facepalm:

[ctgazer]

only now? i thought this back in 2000 when i was deciding where to go...way to be 10 years late macleans

[Mr&Mrs323i]

http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/e...ians-on-campus

Macleans needed to bump up their sagging subscriptions
By rehashing old news from 1980
. What a bunch of losers.

[jxu]

Gotta say theres a lot more asians here now since I've been here at Western.

[miraclewhip]

knowledge is power.

and that's about all i have to say regarding this topic.

not to mention they interviewed two girls from the WASP-iest private school in existence.

[clairvoyant]

Wow....I am so off the stereotype.
A lazy Asian, high school drop-off and no university education.

[montreal red]

lol... i am a typical asian. working hard in university, doing graduate research in civil engineering. but even I couldnt stand being in a school with to many asians. i used to live in vancouver for 4 yrs and almost decided to attend UBC but then i realized all the faculties were full of asians. so i decided mcgill would be better. i am loving it so far. most of the guys/girls in civil eng at mcgill are actually middle eastern or caucasian. at least i get to meet a whole bunch of cool people from different backgrounds.

[alexckma]

who cares about who is in the university... Top schools are not only comprised of Asians, especially when one takes a good look at the Ivy leagues

They say it's not racism, but I'd say it is. But whatever, if they don;t want to compete because they would lose, then it's up to them. That's like saying, I don't want to compete for a job cuz there's too much competition.

No fun if you work hard? Really....? If you only want fun, then dont go to university at all,

[Undies]

this is the future. if you want to compete on a global scale, learn to compete with asians. they have strong work ethics and smart.

[TheRox]

Agreed...but I do think the article is telling -- its def not a racist article. Its saying it the way it is -- certain segments of society are unhappy about certain ethnic groups. It may not be right, but it is true.

And as far as ivy league schools go. There is a cohort within the Ivy League -- Schools like UPenn have a large Jewish and Indian population....yet schools (the big 3) Princeton, Harvard, and Yale maintain their WASP characteristics.

Upenn is constantly ranked as one of the best schools in the world, ditto their medical program -- they let talent enter UPenn, but the big 3 do not.

Which senator or billionaire would want their kid to go to an ivy league school that is full of Jews, Indians, and Asians (Ie. UPenn, Stanford (not ivy i know, but whatever), Cornell).


So this kind of discrimination does exist. They used to label Jews back in the early 20th century and rank their application at Harvard based on the "Jewishness" of their last name because they were out competing the elite whites on the standardized tests.

[TheRox]

Originally Posted by Undies

this is the future. if you want to compete on a global scale, learn to compete with asians. they have strong work ethics and smart.

Lets not get too out of hand...while I think the Asian culture does emphasize hard work and what not..I think the fact that there are what...1.5 billion Asians? has something to do with perception. Whenever you have a population like that (Asians, Indians) that emphasizes hard work and success...and its combined with a MASSIVE numerical count -- the perception will always be that they are successful.

I def am not saying that all cultures are equal...they are most certainly not. Some emphasize certain things over the other. The article mentioned that Asian culture is not as ...social as white North American culture -- which is probably true. Cultures are not equal. For the Ivy Leagues, this is grounds enough for them to limit enrollment of Asians -- lest they end up looking like MIT or CalTech (all asians, indians, and jews).

[Undies]

Originally Posted by TheRox

Lets not get too out of hand...while I think the Asian culture does emphasize hard work and what not..I think the fact that there are what...1.5 billion Asians? has something to do with perception. Whenever you have a population like that (Asians, Indians) that emphasizes hard work and success...and its combined with a MASSIVE numerical count -- the perception will always be that they are successful.

I def am not saying that all cultures are equal...they are most certainly not. Some emphasize certain things over the other. The article mentioned that Asian culture is not as ...social as white North American culture -- which is probably true. Cultures are not equal. For the Ivy Leagues, this is grounds enough for them to limit enrollment of Asians -- lest they end up looking like MIT or CalTech (all asians, indians, and jews).

lets say that 80/20 rules apply. lets say 20% of people are smart (generally). given that asians have a population of 1.5 billion, 20% = 300 million smart asians. now if you take 20% of any other ethnicity with a much smaller population, you'll get a significally smaller number of smart people within an ethnic group. this is just a sheer number combined with hard work and smarts.

I'm not saying that this is what the world is coming to, it is however, what canada's workforce is coming too. although asians get limited entrance to ivy league schools, at the end of the day, business is done on a global scale. so know your competitors, and learn to compete in a very different tomorrow

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/200-...ged-the-world/

[MalM3]

thought thís was about pretty girls or nissans--

shiiiit

[tony20009]

Personally, I think that university admissions, and to a somewhat lesser extent, prep school admissions should be merit based. That such a model leads to one or another race being most populous in a particular campus is not such a big deal; some race is certainly going to dominate.

Can't compete? That's what some of the kids said. Well, ok, if they don't want to attempt to compete, then they certainly won't compete. I graduated with a 4.0 in Accounting and I got out to the bars, joined a fraternity and was an active member, had more than my share of "social interactions," and did it in a top 20 university in the U.S. I even worked as a teaching assistant for the Intro to Computer Information Systems course during my last year.After graduating, I began a career in the Big 6 and passed the CPA exam on my first try.

Having successfully gone through college and career, I can tell you that the only difference I can discern, as goes ability to perform academically, between the Asians and Alexandra and her ilk is that Alexandra et al just didn't want to try competing at U of T. That's unfortunate for as an recruiter for my firm, I can tell you that there is some consideration given for having competed and performed at a higher level in a more competitive environment.

What I find quite telling in that story is the audacity of the white kids who feel that despite not attending the more challenging university, they feel their futures are no less secure and will nonetheless meet their expectations. This is in surprising contrast with the Asians (and if I may, I'd say this is so with other minorities as well) that attending and demonstrating success in the most challenging environments is part of what they see as key to securing a future that meets their expectations. I say "surprising," but the fact is that to many a minority, it's not surprising at all. Many of us have long believed that we need to be demonstrably more able in order to achieve the same things as our non-minority brethren...at least in the U.S.

I know universities have an interest in keeping their student bodies diverse. Diversity overcomes many of the ills found in the greater society and it's certainly worth future leaders and managers being exposed to the perspectives and motivations of folks from differing pseudo-cultures within a given country/state/community's culture that they all otherwise share equally. Universities also need to educate students and if the students that have demonstrated academic success in high school and who apply and accept admission are mostly Asian, well that's who'll be there. That doesn't particularly bother me. I find it more bothersome that high achieving white, black native, etc. kids (to follow Alexandra's line) don't apply because there are a lot of Asian kids there.

I don't know if Alexandra is a racist. It's odd to me, however, that her parents seemingly don't mind that (if she and her younger brother be high achieving students) their kids are suborning their educational opportunities due to the ethnic makeup of the school. Indeed, my friend Robert went off to Howard University with his curly red hair because it was the best medical school to which he got accepted; he didn't not go there because it's a historically black university in the U.S. While I don't know if Alexandra's comments are driven by racist bias, fear of competition, or apathy, I do know that if U of T is the best school academically, and she and her brother/friends are qualified to attend, they are doing themselves a disservice by not applying there. I will admit that as it's hard for me to think that one would be bored in Toronto, it tries my objectivity to maintain there's no ethnic bias going on. Surely this white woman isn't afraid of being a minority at some point in her life, however brief, and finding out just what that is like? Surely she's not that much a coward.

Yes, in the main, Asian students work hard and earn high grades. That's not to say that kids of other races cannot earn as high or higher grades. And it's certainly no reason not to go to a school So why do Asian kids proportionately get better grades? Perhaps it's because of their pseudo-culture. From my travel and work experience in China (PRC), I noticed that one's performance is a reflection not only on oneself, but also on one's family. I don't think that the linkage of duty and honor to performance and the transcendence of that honor from the child to the family is in any other culture (that I know of anyway) as strong.

I can tell you that for me it was in some ways the same, but not entirely. My parents worked quite hard to be successful and they managed to do so to quite an extreme extent, despite being young to middle aged adults during the middle 1900s. They certainly made me aware of the struggles they overcame, and they certainly instilled in me a sense of obligation to perform. My performance, however, never, in my mind was a reflection on them. So while I did perform admirably as a kid, I did not only to please them, but also to please myself. I simply liked learning. The same was true of my minority peers. Sure, we were geeks, but now that we're all grown up, we are the ones who can afford our expensive habits and most of our cool classmates are, though not struggling, quite "average" in the "success" game.

Another thing that makes quite a difference in the success of kids in school -- any kids, minority or not -- is that their parents are well educated. I can recall many a time when my folks would help me with my school work. That's true of my teenage and college age peers. I'll never forget struggling in high school through chemistry and were it not for my mother spending hours to help me get it, I'd surely have got a C or maybe a B-. I think too that if one's parents are highly educated, and are yet successful (or doing just fine, as it were, at least from the youth's POV even if not in the bigger picture), the youth may come to decide that academic success, at least in that topic if not in general, isn't necessary to do at least as well, and they may decide that doing as well is enough for them. It's not an invalid choice and given the evidence the youth would have observed, it's a quite viable conclusion for them to make. What is sometimes unfortunate is that the kid doesn't realize that they've so set their expectations and parents don't often point out clearly their own mistakes and shortcomings and the impacts of those faults and failures to their children. It's much easier to show them the right things to do then to bare our souls and give them demonstrable evidence of the wrong ways to do things.

As goes people of a particular ethnic identity group hanging out together, that's not likely to change until folks not in that group seek to hang with kids in that group and vice versa. It's a fact that people perceive it's just easier to make friends (or at least find neutrality and objectivity) with folks that have something in common with them and when they are tossed into a place where all they have in common is ethnicity, that's who they'll gravitate toward, particularly when there are clear and large differences in the numbers of folks that are like them and those that aren't. It's not racist to behave that way, at least not in isolated situations. Eschewing a university for that reason, does, however, tempt one to think there's more going on. I mean after all, the primary point for going to a university is to obtain an education. I feel the other things one gets from the experience should be secondary.

My niece got into Columbia, Princeton, Swarthmore, Cornell, Ann Arbor, UVA, Ithaca, Georgetown and U MD. She chose Cornell, mainly because we all consider it academically equal to the other top schools and she liked the part of the country it's in and it's close enough to NYC and Boston for weekend road trips. She wasn't nuts about Swarthmore, but she'd have gone there before Ithaca, UMD or Georgetown, all of which are still good schools. And once she'd heard from the Ivy League schools it didn't matter much what the other schools said, although none of them offered her a four year scholarship, which could well have made a difference for they are all good enough if one doesn't have to pay out of pocket.

The point is that race wasn't a factor. For myself growing up, race was a factor, but in an odd way. I can tell you for too that my father doesn't especially care for white folks, and he'll tell anyone that, including white folks who have the balls to ask him. He's got a few white friends and they are among his very closest, but they are individuals to him and he doesn't see them as archtypes of the white peoples, yet they know exactly what he thinks white folks are capable of. As a kid, he had one white friend -- they were fast friends until the man died a couple years ago -- who was the grandson of the man who owned my father's grandparents.

I don't berate my old man; I understand why he feels the way he does and I just don't share that feeling. We just disagree on that point. The Klan burnt down my dad's home when he was 9 and he's seen many a lynching victim. In school he learned about all the pain that was caused in the bygone centuries. He lived through most of the 1900s in the U.S. and he's now concluded that's just what white folks do. He's lost any faith he might have had in white folks, although Obama's being elected did soften him a bit for he knows the man didn't get there with black votes alone. (Don't get me wrong...he voted for Obama, but he didn't vote for Jesse Jackson or Shirley Chisholm.)

I earlier said race was a factor to my upbringing in an odd way. I related the anecdote about my father to tell you that I didn't know this fact about my father until I was 30 years old. Despite his own prejudices, he had the presence of mind to know that it is wrong and he didn't therefore teach those prejudices to me. Indeed, my folks have always lived (for the entirety of my life at least) in posh, white neighborhoods and sent me to a nationally recognized prep school and a fine grade school before that. They made sure I belonged to Jack and Jill, but they also supported my participation in a largely white social group as well. Finally, he was supportive and objective regardless of the race of the girls I brought round.

So what do I think about Alexandra and the original story the OP submitted? I think Alexandra is either:

• a chicken shit, or
• an under-achiever, or
• to the manor born.

Does race matter, sure it matters. But it's about the time and place in which it matters that matters. Choosing a school is not a place where it should matter. Medical evaluations sure it should matter for certain races are more prone to some ailments than are other races.

As an aside, young folks of this and the next generation had better not be timid about competing. The fact is that there are 1.5 (or so) billion Chinese Asians alone and I've not met one who isn't driven, smart and ready to make the most of any opportunity that comes their way. The weight of numbers is undeniable and it should not come as a surprise that Asians are strongest particularly in the business, maths and sciences. They are empirical fields where the facts of achievement speak for themselves, regardless of race. We'd all do well to learn what Asian culture is about just as in years past it behooved others to learn what American culture was about.

[3002 tii]

Originally Posted by Mallard

thought thís was about pretty girls or nissans--

shiiiit

hahahahahahaha

[redfox]

The writer of the original article made a very common statistical mistake: if the sample size is not random, there can be no correlation.

Generally speaking immigrants, especially in recent years, are allowed to immigrate based on education and/or business merits. Hence, the minorities in Canada are allowed to immigrate to Canada because they are either highly educated, has business success, or are very driven in changing the status quo. These people are either us, or our parents. I hope you all see my point.

Go to China, then you will soon realize that intelligence demographics is not that different.

It's like a Chinese reporter writing an article with the headline "OMG Everyone is Falling in Love with Chinese People", which about European descent people in China predominately dating Asian people!!! Well no shit.

[montreal red]

Originally Posted by redfox

The writer of the original article made a very common statistical mistake: if the sample size is not random, there can be no correlation.

Generally speaking immigrants, especially in recent years, are allowed to immigrate based on education and/or business merits. Hence, the minorities in Canada are allowed to immigrate to Canada because they are either highly educated, has business success, or are very driven in changing the status quo. These people are either us, or our parents. I hope you all see my point.

Go to China, then you will soon realize that intelligence demographics is not that different.

It's like a Chinese reporter writing an article with the headline "OMG Everyone is Falling in Love with Chinese People", which about European descent people in China predominately dating Asian people!!! Well no shit.

+1
i agree with this. most of the asians i know including myself come from an educated family or a family with relative success in the business world.

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by montreal red

+1
i agree with this. most of the asians i know including myself come from an educated family or a family with relative success in the business world.

The same is true of the Asians in my HS class, and that was 30+ years ago in the US.

[charlie335]

Originally Posted by tony20009

So what do I think about Alexandra and the original story the OP submitted? I think Alexandra is either:

• a chicken shit, or
• an under-achiever, or
• to the manor born.

that pretty much sums up what the entire article is about

[TheRox]

Originally Posted by charlie335

that pretty much sums up what the entire article is about

Yea but whether you like it or not...she's going to have a good, reasonably successful life in front of her...a decent income no doubt.

Even if she puts in 1/2 the effort; thats what it means to be connected, wealthy, and above all -- have that upper class environment. This applies to the elite in China, India, US...and while Canada has no real "elite" because its a flat society, the pseudo-elite here.

If she came from some ghetto area of Toronto, based on environment alone she'd be working in a hair-salon or selling clothes at the Gap well after she went to York University or Ryerson.


Some things in life are about luck. Period.