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GOLDSEA |
ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
ARE IVY DEGREES WORTH THE SACRIFICES
ending their kids to ivy league universities is the dream of every Asian American parent. Or so it seems. And there is no shortage of young AA willing to oblige. As of 2000, Asian Americans made up 12-19% of the undergrad enrollments of the top-20 ivy league universities.
No one questions the prestige associated with ivy degrees. In fact, sneer critics, that's the only thing bought with the extra money. And even that, they add, is wearing thin in a nation in which he cultural center of gravity has shifted to California.
It's true that investments in high ivy tuitions often don't show up in career earnings when compared with graduates of public universities of comparable student body profiles. But the criticisms run deeper than return on investment. Some Asian Americans who have attended ivy league colleges have come away regretting their decisions for other reasons.
Foremost is the sense that the ivies are structured for the benefit of legatees, the progeny of blueblooded alumni. Comprising upwards of 40% of some ivies, the legatees are often exempted from stringent admissions standards. The result is that AA students with excellent credentials are the workhorses preserving the institutions' high academic reputations, thereby giving a free ride to undeserving legatees.
Another common complaint is that the deck is stacked socially against Asian males in a system designed to preserve the princely status quo of the scions of WASP families. A disproportionate number of attractive AA females are admitted by the ivies, some have observed, while far fewer attractive AA males are admitted. This subtle bias, suspect critics, is implemented in the screening interviews used by most ivies.
Then there's the Eurocentric worldview imposed by the courses. Not to mention the lousy weather, bland food and having to put up with locals hostile toward Asians. Contrast all this against the majority-ease lifestyles enjoyed by the AA in, say, the UC campuses.
The bragging rights an ivy education affords parents, conclude critics, are far outweighed by the psychic and emotional sacrifices exacted from their kids.
Does an ivy education provide rewards commensurate with the sacrifices? Or is it a trap for AA with overzealous parents with old-world views?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:01:17 PM)
Harvey, Ragazza, AC Dropout and everyone else:
First of all, USA does not equal white. It may equal white to a majority of folks in Asia, but in reality it is not white. Two of the largest states will not have any majority soon. Geniuses born in the US could be Chinese too or for that matter, Japanese, Koreans and any other group.
The fact is the US is well ahead of everyone in technical and scientific fields. Pray tell me why US scientists of all persusions excel in science and technology, but also give us a disaster known as enron. Enorn and other "homogemneous" corporations are more similar to Japan and Korea than to the rest of the US. The board of directors of Enron were all not just white...but white Texas cowboys who tried to get into ventures they knew nothing about!! Japan and Korea have taken the similar path towards destruction. Japan never recovered after globalization came into being in the early 1990s. Korea will never recover. Not under present circumstances.
When will Asia challenge the US. Actually, some of them are already challenging the US, but these countries are very small. Asians need to intermarry more as the American whites have done...by that I mean Thais should marry Chinese, Vietnamese should marry Korean, and Malays should marry Japanese. However, it is not likely to happen. As the rules are written now, it is far easier to get a white spouse permanent residency in Japan than a Malay or a Bangladeshi spouse. The immigration laws in many Asian countries are tilted towards people who marry whites than other Asians. There is only one place in the world where Asians marry other Asians...you got it...the good old USA....and they all become Americans or if you would prefer...full blooded Asian Americans, and these are among some of the smartest people you will get in this country.
Asian American Male
Friday, December 21, 2001 at 07:40:58 (PST)
DV8 Ragazza,
I'm NOT here to state whether Asian Americans are smarter or Purple males are more intelligent or whatever. I believe NO race is born superior than any other. However, just a small bit if info, there is a decent Asian presence in Nano-technology. I'm NOT saying Asians dominate or ANYTHING to that effect, but we are there.
http://pubs.acs.org/nano/
Thanks,
Kevin Yang
Thursday, December 20, 2001 at 17:20:53 (PST)
Ivy Leaguer,
"3) The research Asians are doing in America is often the low-level, labor intensive lab stuff. For example, in computer science, they are writing code (NOT rocket science), not developing next generation computer architecture."
Don't you think that is a bias in the research community. You have this highly intellegent multiple degree person in your lab for 20 years. He doesn't become a department head, but is left doing a techician job. That's what I usually saw and that's why I didn't go on in acedemia. All the post grad programs I saw had too much of a political aspect that would be stacked against me as an Asian. No point walking into a situation where it would might take me 2-3 years longer to earn a PHD and prospect of tenure just as tedious.
DV8 Ragazza,
2001 Int'l Bio and Infotech Summit - that's for department heads. Who was watching the lab and continuing the research while they were off at the conference?
If you read Ivy Leaguers post very closely. He make a very astute observeration. The population of Asian in the USA is on the top end of the intellegence curve due to immigration behavior. If your familiar with the UC system, you will see asian are way over-represented there. If you look at your Stanford RA and TA distribution you will also see Asian over-representation to the overall population of the USA.
So why doesn't that translate to more tenure prof and department heads being asian? If asian are over-represented in the all USA University systems. This arguement would extend into all aspect research and teaching.
Also as a women, you must also be familar with the hard sciences/engin departments political preasure to retain you if you decide to become a grad student. I've been to more than enough coffe clutches during my acedemic years dealing with how to retain female grad students.
Perhaps it is your age, but to go off on your soap box there is also quite silly.
Buddist Temple and education in China. Is like The Roman Catholic Church to European gov't in the Middle Age. It was a part of knowledge in China, but hardly any great learning institution. Chinese people in general treat Buddist as foriegn thing. That why if you read any Chinese novels, no one gets a Buddist character and sometime they are the bad guys in the novels.
The standized exams in ancient China for government office never tested on the knowledge of Buddist. Analysis of past philosophers was the topic.
AC dropout
Thursday, December 20, 2001 at 15:16:02 (PST)
Ivy Leaguer,
I agree with most of what you're stating except for your statement about Asians being "low-level" researchers in Computer Science. Having gone to both undergrad and grad schools in EE/CS, I can say that there are PLENTY of Asian minds doing "rocket science" types of research in the high-tech field. Names like Kai Hwang, H. C. Trung, and Gupta were highly influential in the developing of parallel processing, and out of order instruction based computing. In fact, the three of them have been involved in numerous suits against Intel for patent infringment.
Everyone else,
what is with this, "who can top this" genius comparison? No one is BORN to have a superior mind. It's really silly to measure "who's more this" or "who's more that" when the proof for such things are completely subjective. All I'll say is that Asian Americans have made significant contributions in the high tech arena and much of Silicon Valley was built upon their backs.
Kevin Yang
Thursday, December 20, 2001 at 11:28:40 (PST)
Watevazz...are you stupid? You need to read the post being responded to first. The point I made and proved, was that Asia had problems with disease long before a European set foot in the region, and therefore I felt the remarks were unfair. Sitting around making idiotic excuses about bugs will not change the facts. Telling me that mosquitos inhabit the USA as well as Asia as if that proves a point might be one of the dumbest comments I've read so far. As I said, Europe has plenty of documented health problems...but my point is that I wouldn't sit around blaming such problems on Asians, Africans, or whoever.
AC Dropout: I see what you mean. Yes, education is skewed. But I think that's just what happens when it comes to education. For ex. in China and Japan, the accounts of what happened in Nanjing, China are very different. In the USA, countless heroes from every ethnic minority group and the female sex have been overlooked. It takes some hard searching to find out the truth. Yes, quite often in textbooks and media "the great white man" shows up to "civilize" all the native heathens. But what I've been saying is that *every* culture has a version of that. In Europe, nations where English is dominant tend to do that to the others. In the USA, "whites" do it. In the Middle East it's portions of the Islamic population. Deeper in Asia...I'm sure there's an equivalent.
My main point is just that one need not demonize one culture to be proud of another. That is partly at the core of what *creates* many of the educational biases many in here are apparently so pissed about. I've been browsing this site today, and found that Asians seem to deal with alot of the same things we see on sites for Italian and German Americans such as relations between "FOB's" vs. natives, interracial dating, language, negative stereotypes and feminist issues. Interesting.
DV8 Ragazza
Thursday, December 20, 2001 at 10:39:52 (PST)
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