How to Get into an Ivy (as an Asian) — and Why That’s Not the Goal for My Own Kids
(Originally posted on BrightStory Admission Consulting)
This is the topic I get asked about All. The. Time.
By parents of 5-year olds.
No joke.
I’ll give it to you straight, from my years of coaching students into Brown’s 8-year combined BA/MD program, Stanford, MIT and the like.
Let me preface this with the fact that I do not think it’s necessary, or important, to go to an Ivy League or top-tier school to “succeed” in life. [Update: I just discovered attending a top-tier school does make a difference in your future salary if you’re not a wealthy, white male a.k.a. your parents don’t have connections. The greatest impact is for minorities, low-income students and those whose parents did not attend college. The studies I was reading before about the lack of salary differentiation between elite and non-elite college graduates were based on wealthy, white males.]
But let’s note that the skills it takes to get into top schools, like obeying rules, meeting someone else’s expectations, studying for standardized tests, etc., do not necessarily translate into “success” in the work place and life. (You’ve heard about the bamboo ceiling, right?)
As my podcast guest Joyce Guan West, a serial entrepreneur and top-rated career coach advised, beware of the workhorse mentality. If that’s your perspective, you’ll never reach the upper echelons of your field, or be paid according to the value you truly bring to your company. The most important thing, she advises, is to become a thought leader. Who can put a price on a speech? Is it worth $500 for an hour? Or $20,000?
I think the most important skills to teach our young people are the soft skills: communication, leadership, problem solving, team work, creativity, marketing oneself, networking, finding mentors, flexible thinking, self advocacy, confidence, resilience, initiative, etc.
I’m not personally pushing my kids to go to a top-tier school because I know how impossibly competitive it is and I’ve seen the toll the competition takes on the mental health of young people (e.g. my students have meltdowns/breakdowns, and you hear about the suicides). Also, smaller private schools like Reed can produce more PhD students, per capita, than larger well-known research universities. Direct contact with professors, rather than teaching assistants, can lead to stronger mentorship and recommendation letters. I want my children to acquire soft skills, a love of learning, and entrepreneurial experiences, so they can create their own opportunities.
With that being said, since people are asking, here’s what I’ve been seeing recently in terms of my students who are accepted to top schools:
Grades:
Basically perfect
Test Scores:
SAT: 1500+
SAT Subject Tests: 750+
APs: Many 5s
Extracurriculars:
Extraordinary - here are profiles of some of my students - they’ve been generalized to protect student identities
-Asian female applicant: Extremely prestigious international science fair. Grand Prize regional science competition. Highly competitive musician.
-White male applicant: State ranked and nationally accomplished debater. President of private school “House”, (Student body is divided into groups of 35-40 student “houses”.) Drama lead. Excelled at computer science.
-Asian female applicant: Researcher at internationally-renowned university - likely to be listed as an author on a paper with research study she designed. Taught self biology. Captain of sports team. Shy but forced self to participate in musicals where she bloomed.
Essays
Typically must be original and outstanding.
Examples:
-White male student: Originally wanted to write about building confidence as a student body tri-president. I didn’t think the story sent the right message, so under my advice, the student opted to write about experiences as a dishwasher at Cracker Barrel.
Even though he was a top student, nationally-ranked debater and had major leadership, the dishwasher experiences demonstrated that he was humble, worked hard and could work cross-culturally. (His Asian female dishwashing co-workers said he was the “hardest working white boy” they had ever seen.)
Highlighting these character traits worked for him because he was a white male. If he were Asian, I would’ve advised an essay to bring out more classic American style leadership traits, since Asians are stereotyped and penalized for being “hard working” and “humble”.
-Asian female student: Originally wanted to write about high-level scientific research. Her dad did not think she had any hardship stories to share but after getting to know my student, I discovered she had a parent with a serious illness. We decided to focus the main essay on the illness and how it impacted her life mission.
(Afterwards, I ran the two essay ideas - research vs. parent illness - by a former Stanford admissions reader. She agreed the research essay most likely would have resulted in a denial. Essay topics really matter.)
Special Advice for Asian-Americans
Your grades and test scores need to be near perfect. (A study showed Asians had to score an average of 140 points higher on the SAT than whites to get into the same highly competitive school.)
Your extracurriculars must be outstanding, oftentimes at the national or international level. (I think regional and state level extracurriculars may work, but I haven’t personally witnessed it in recent years.)
And one of the most important things is your essay - it must be creative and compelling.
You’ve got to share the story that makes me tell my husband over dinner, “You’ll never believe what my student does / is going through. My student is amazingly insightful / inspires me / makes me think.”
If you’re Asian-American, the stereotype among admission readers is that you’re quiet, hard working and interested in STEM.*
Use your essays to dispel that myth. Demonstrate the classic white male leadership style (speak out, take initiative, etc.)
And this is important - if you’re an Asian-American male, I typically recommend against writing about STEM for your primary essay unless it’s a truly outstanding take on it. If you’re female, there’s more leeway with that topic. In general, avoid writing about piano/ violin and other stereotypically Asian extracurriculars.
The goal is to stand out, right?
Colleges want diversity and you’re being compared against your Asian-American peers. (They’ll never admit it, but look at the discrepancy in statistics between racial groups that’s required to get in. Also, schools that focus heavily on statistics for admission have more Asians - the UCs are about 40% Asian - whereas schools that emphasize holistic admissions are less Asian - Harvard is 24% Asian.)
With Covid restricting access to testing, colleges are moving away from standardized tests and more towards a holistic process.
For Asians, that means grades, essays, extracurriculars and teacher recommendations are going to be of utmost importance.
Do your best, but understand that these days, getting into one of the top schools is incredibly difficult.
There are so many advantaged groups in college admissions (donor, athlete, race, class, alumni) that the admission rate you’re seeing - e.g. Stanford’s class of 2024 was 5.19% - is lower for Asians and those who don’t fall in a specially recruited category.
Regardless, I always recommend my students apply to top-tier schools if they’re interested. Even if you don't get in, the process of trying is still valuable. A denial doesn’t mean you’re any less qualified than someone who’s admitted. You never know what admissions committees are looking for that year, whether it be an oboist or a fencer.
There are so many other paths to success.
You’ll be just fine.
—-
Footnotes:
*Did you read up on the lawsuit accusing Harvard of discriminating against Asian-American applicants? They revealed confidential documents, applications with reader remarks that described Asians as “quiet and, of course, wants to be a doctor” and “[applicant's] scores and application seem so typical of other Asian applications I've read: extraordinarily gifted in math with the opposite extreme in English.”
Although Asians ranked higher in every category - grades, teacher recommendations, extracurriculars, etc. - they ranked lower on “personality traits” which hurt their chances of admission.
Does that sound familiar?
Later in life, Asians are said to lack “executive presence”, something that’s very nebulous, as a reason they’re passed over for promotion.
Work on those leadership, self advocacy and networking skills.
How about you? Do you think it’s important to go to a top-tier school for success in work and life? Do you know of anyone who didn’t go to a top school and still did well? What traits do you think are most important for “success”?
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