常青藤的亚裔问题

by Dr. Michele Hernandez

Co-Founder, Top Tier Admissions

晴燕 译

(编者按： 最近亚裔教育联盟（AACE）联合132个亚裔社团对耶鲁大学、布朗大学和达特茅斯大学在招生过程中针对亚裔的不平等做法发起了申诉。 前达特茅斯大学招考官 Dr. Michele Hernandez 就此问题发表了看法。 该文揭示了藤校对亚裔学生使用种族偏见等非法歧视。 我们在此转载这篇文章以期引起大家的关注，也希望各位发表自己的看法。)

有两个问题一直困扰着常青藤学校的亚裔申请者。第一，大多数亚裔学生只专注申请哈佛，耶鲁和普林斯顿（特别是哈佛，作为很多亚裔的梦想学校，其申请者多到完全不成比例）；第二，亚裔学生的录取率明显低于其他族裔，以至于他们的录取人数完全不能代表某些学校不断增加的申请者数量。

本周一，美国亚裔教育联盟 （AACE）向司法部和教育部提起申诉，指出过去20年，美国亚裔大学适龄人群一直在增长，但此增长却遭到布朗，达特茅斯和耶鲁三所大学的忽略或拒绝。AACE特别指向这些学校的“高度主观和歧视”的录取决定。2015年，针对哈佛的类似申诉被提出，亚裔学生录取人数即有所上升，尽管申诉最终被驳回。同样在2006年，有学生对普林斯顿提起申诉后，迫于政治压力，该校亚裔学生的录取率从2007年的14.7 ％上升到2014年的25.4 ％。

我们一直是录取程序透明化的倡导者，高中生及其家长的支持者，因此我们认为这是正当申诉。作为曾经的局内人（前达特茅斯大学招生官员），我深刻体会到即使是所谓的“整体评估录取程序”，实际上也是对亚裔学生的歧视。我在此分享了这些内部观点

（常青藤录取办公室背后的故事）Behind the Scenes in an Ivy League Admissions Office. 高分数，高GPA的亚裔申请者通常被看作是“内向”，“机械”和“缺乏火花”的“又一钢琴／小提琴高手”。虽然我不认为这是故意歧视，但长期的思维定势认为大多数亚裔申请者只擅长数学／科学，小提琴或钢琴，周末去上中文（或韩文）学校，并在Kumon这样的地方开小灶，参加高水平的数学竞赛和一些像全美学术十项全能赛或测验碗一类的以获奖为目的的活动。在招生委员会讨论时，亚裔学生通常被拒，因为他们“不出众”，“太安静”，“缺乏影响力”或“太单一”。

在常春藤招生办公室工作时，我亲历过这种歧视。过去20年，在为学生服务的私人咨询领域工作时，我们一直在目睹这种歧视，我们甚至都不会为此感到惊讶。我们会告诉我们的亚裔客户（包括美国公民和国际学生），730分的常青藤平均水平的SAT分数通常是不够的。如果你是亚裔，你必须高于平均水平（一个第三方研究显示亚裔必须比白人学生高出140分）才能进入美国顶尖大学。我们也让我们的亚裔客户注重提高阅读水平和词汇量，因为亚裔最常见的被拒原因就是SAT批判阅读方面的低分数。虽然亚裔800分的SAT数学已成默认分数，很少有亚裔学生能在批判阅读部分获得高分。因此，我们让更低年级的学生参加严格的阅读和词汇培训。我们首先是教育工作者，我们当然希望学生拥有选择大学的能力，但我们同时也希望他们能够加深对学习的热爱，甚至拥有享受经典作品的能力。

我们帮助亚裔学生培养对人文科学的兴趣，而不是只关注他们在数学和科学方面的成绩，因为这些方面完全不足以让他们在竞争中脱颖而出。我们最出色的一个亚裔学生不但有非常突出的数学成绩，而且还采纳了我们的建议——拓展古典文学方面的特长（拉丁文和希腊文）。结果他在各种不被看好的情况下，同时获得了耶鲁和斯坦福的录取。我们让他按照自发的兴趣来进行选择，而不是遵从既定的文化压力要么选择医学预科，要么被拒。 

我们强烈感到大学录取对亚裔申请者的不公正。最明显的违规（申诉中并未提到）可能是顶尖学校的工作人员在招生咨询会中吹嘘他们的“有色学生”占30-35%。一般当人们听到这种说法，他们倾向于想到“少数族裔”学生（非裔，拉丁裔或印第安裔美国人）。但事实并非如此。顶尖学校少数族裔学生的人数要少得多（大概总共占15-20%）。这些大学公然用亚裔学生的数量来充当“有色学生”，并以此代表多样性。但和其他少数族裔学生不同，亚裔并未在录取程序中受到特殊对待。这是最大的不公。

我们希望这次申诉可以让顶尖大学对自身的选择性录取程序进行深度反思，从而让大学录取对所有的申请人都更加公正，并终结针对任何族裔申请者的歧视。同时，我们也要鼓励所有的大学申请者们获得更多的信息，而不要轻信坊间传言的某些大学录取的神话。在竞争激烈的美国大学录取中，申请者们应该采取更加有针对性的措施来获得更多的选择。

原文链接： 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michele-hernandez/the-ivy-league-asian-prob_b_10121814.html

The Ivy League Asian Problem

by Dr. Michele Hernandez

There are two problems with Asian college applicants and Ivy League colleges. The first is that the vast majority of Asian applicants focus on a subset of Harvard/Yale/Princeton (and a disproportionate number on Harvard, the Asian dream for many). The second is that the acceptance rates for Asian students are typically lower than those for virtually every other demographic group to the point that the number of admitted students does not represent the rise of the applicant pool at selective colleges.

The Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) filed a complaint with the Departments of Justice and Education Monday, stating that as the population of college-age Asian Americans has grown in the past 20 years, their representation has leveled off or declined at Brown, Dartmouth and Yale. The AACE highlights the schools’ “highly subjective and discriminatory” admissions decisions. When a similar complaint was filed against Harvard in 2015, the number of Asian admits rose despite the fact the complaint was denied. After students filed a complaint against Princeton in 2006, its admission rate for Asian students increased to 25.4% in 2014 from 14.7% in 2007 in part due to the political pressure.

From where we sit as advocates for transparency in admissions and as advocates for high school students and their parents, the complaint is valid. I’ve seen from the inside (as a former admissions officer at Dartmouth College) how even the so-called “holistic process” can discriminate against Asian students. I share some of this insider information here: Behind the Scenes in an Ivy League Admissions Office. Often high-scoring Asian applicants with top GPA’s were seen as “passive,” “robotic,” and “just another violin/piano playing standout” with “lack of spark.” Though I don’t think discrimination was intentional, there persisted a stereotype that the majority of Asian applicants were strong in math/science, played the violin or piano at a high level, attended Chinese (or Korean) school on weekends and often did tutoring, Kumon, high level math contests and award-centered activities like Academic Decathlon or Quiz Bowl. At committee discussions, Asians students were often rejected because they “didn’t stand out,” were “too quiet,” “low impact” or “too one-sided.”

Having seen this kind of discrimination first-hand working in an Ivy League admissions office, it comes as no surprise that working with students in private consulting for the past 20 years, we’ve seen continued discrimination. We tell the Asian clients we work with (both US citizens and international students) that it’s not good enough to have the “average” Ivy SAT scores of 730 or so - if you are Asian, you have to be well above average (a third party study proved that number was actually 140 points higher than the average for white students) to get into top US Colleges. We also focus our Asian clients on high level reading and vocabulary as the quickest way for Asians to be rejected is a low Critical Reading score on the SAT. Though 800’s on the SAT math section is de rigueur, fewer Asian students excel on the Critical Reading section of the SAT. We put our younger students on a strict reading and vocabulary program for this reason. As educators first, we want our students to have college choices, of course, but we also want them to deepen their love of learning and ability to embrace and even enjoy the classics.

We work with our Asian students to identify and help foster their humanities interests, rather than solely focusing on math and science where it’s impossible to stand out amongst the competition. One of our strongest Asian math students took our advice and developed a focus in classics (Latin and Greek). He defied the odds and was admitted to both Yale and Stanford. We gave him permission to take high level action on what was a natural interest rather than follow a seemingly cultural pressure to be premed or perish.

We feel strongly that colleges have not been fair to Asian applicants. Perhaps the most flagrant violation (one not mentioned in the complaint) is the fact that at information sessions at all top colleges, staff brag about their “students of color” percentage of 30-35%. When the general public hears this, they tend to think about “minority” students (African American, Latino/a, Native American). But this is not the case. The minority number is much, much smaller at top colleges (more like 15-20% total). Colleges have the nerve to count Asians in the “of color” number to represent diversity, yet unlike minority students, they get no special treatment in admissions. This is patently unfair.

We hope this complaint will lead to a deeper examination of the selective admissions process at top colleges to make it fairer for all college applicants and to move to end discrimination against any one group of students. In the meantime, we encourage all college applicants to become informed and not operate on the many myths floating around about how to hack admissions, but rather take pointed action to have more choices in the competitive US admissions game.